Kyushu 2023 - Nagasaki Urakami Town Dinner

 

View of Urakami town. It's such a nice view! It's not what I imagine a Japanese town would look like, lol. And since we were still at the early evening time when we walked back to town, we decided to explore the town and mall, have some dinner here before headed back to Nagasaki. 

For dinner, we chanced upon an empty tempura shop with attractive pricing, and it was manned by a solo old uncle. That's usually a good sign when it comes to food. Granted that we were super early for dinner, like 5pm? So it was understandable the shop was empty.

Here is the uncle at the shop. And the shop looked very organised and unique. So we went and sat ourselves down and ordered our dinner.

The pre-set was immediately placed on our seating area, as we waited for the main ingredients to be cooked and served for us in that little silver tin plate.

Here is a sample of our set meal. First came the vegetables.

Then came the seafood, all served hot, immediately out of the oil.

I really enjoyed such a meal. Tempura is something hard to cook at home cause I hate using so much oil to cook it. Plus, it usually consist of a variety of vegetables and seafood, so it's insane to shop for the raw ingredient for a one or two person meal.  So I don't mind paying to eat this at a restaurant, especially in Japan. 

After our light dinner, we explore the mall, and I found a Moomin pop-up store!

Everything is so cute and pretty, but also expensive. 

I also found a Mr Donut at the ground floor, and it sold Houjicha cream donut. So I got one for myself as dessert. Mr Donut has a special place in my heart as I once just survived on Mr Donut and fresh milk  for dinner in Japan in one of my earlier trip when I just started working. I lost so much weight just having that for dinner! Lol. 

The view before we went to take our train home. What a lovely romantic view. I felt like I was perhaps in some little Italian town in Europe. Lovely way to end a day of travelling and exploring. And we haven't even checked into our hotel yet!

Kyushu 2023 - Nagasaki Peace Park

 

After visiting the Atomic Museum, we headed to the Peace Park to spend some time there. I always see this famous sculpture in the news, especially whenever there as an American President visiting Japan, or during the memorial day of the bombing. So I wanted to see it at least once in my life.

Walking towards the famous sculpture. Yup, it was as grand and emotional as I thought it would. By the way, I'm a pacifist and can't really understand the concept of war. I an the type that felt that the Earth is big enough to support everyone, and I think greed is the cause of war.

Besides the famous sculpture, there were a lot of other beautiful sculptures in the part. I guess it's a good place to come and take a walk and reflect about life, human kind, meaning and purpose etc. But how many visitors here actually do crave out the time to do that? Many probably don't even visit all the other sculpture, or maybe just walk pass them on their way to collect as many touristy spot on their photo album as you could. 

Those visitors would have missed these beautiful pink flowers, or the hidden spot of some of the sculptures inside each mini garden ground. We were on our own travel, so we could stop and linger as much as we want. I didn't want to come all this way just to see one statue when the whole garden was even more lovely!

Some of the statues were of the war, like this mother covering a child during the bombing. In Hiroshima, there is even a Children's Peace Park. And sometimes school children visit it and sing songs in tribute to those kids who were lost in the war. It is a very emotional sight to witness, cause I was just there in 2024 with a friend.

Statues of after the war, with a mother holding up a child, hoping the child's future would be better, and that the worst was behind.... Yeah, a lot of the statue seems to focus on women and children. Maybe cause they were the ones that suffered the most at the decisions of men.... Yes, I'm just gonna leave that sentence there to sink in.

Statue of freedom, again of a lady.

A tribute from Brazil. Brazil has the largest Japanese immigrant population in the world. Yeah, I was just as surprised as you when I found that out when I was working there. I thought I would stand out walking around town in Brazil, but turns out, I blend right in! Hahaha.

A circular metal-like sculpture of people surrounding the globe?

Lastly, here is a wefie of us in front of the famous statue. I am glad I came here :) Peace!

Kyushu 2023 - Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum

 

Continuing on with my bias of the city, more futuristic landscape of Nagasaki! Lol. Besides my bias, I do find such landscape interesting as we don't have such sights in Malaysia. We do have Tuas and Jurong Island in Singapore that looks pretty cool at night.....

Anyway, it was too early to really check in to our hotel, so we took our last free JR ride to Urakami town for a short half day trip. It was the last day of our Kyushu JR Pass, and I really wanted to make full use of it before it expires. Cause from next day onwards, if we wanted to get on a train, we have to pay for it :(  So off to Urakami we went. The photo above is one of the buildings at Urakami. Nagasaki is actually a very westernised city due to the post war. So you would actually see a lot of Western influences in their buildings and architecture. I'll show you along the way of our stay there!

Coming out of the station, we used the road sign and Google Map to guide us to our destination. We were headed to the Atomic Bomb Museum. Since it's the first time my husband and me are in Nagasaki, I thought we should visit the museum as a form of respect to the city. Yay, I'm kinda weird that way, but I thought that was important. 

Maps were clear, with lots of English. I guess many westerners visit this place too?

Cutting across the Peace Park. The covered walkway actually has an escalator in it, which we took. I was just impressed that the school kids and teachers took the stairs instead. I thought that was very considerate of them. I doubt my country's school kids would do the same, needless to say the teachers! 

There were a lot of school excursion to this place. I remember being on an excursion when I was in my university days, visiting the Atomic Bomb Museum in Hiroshima :)

The epic center, where the bomb was dropped. I know many Asian people does not want to visit such places due to radiation. And I guess I can understand that. But I never planned to have children, so it was never an issue for me to visit. In fact, I thought such visit was cool and meaningful to my little short life. To be at the exact place history took a turn in human history.....  Yeah, I get it that most people don't share the same interest as me.... lol.

Finally we reached the museum. And meeting my expectation, it was a futuristic design builded into the ground! So to enter it, you go all the way down!

The beautiful interior. Japan has insanely lovely buildings.

The day the clock stopped. I like such dramatic display. It was a dramatic and sad museum to visit. We didn't really spend much time inside as it was quite small.

Ruins from after the bombing. The walls of a church.

After the museum, I went to the memorial museum nearby. Again, a lovely entrance into the museum. And the museum here focus more on the survivor and the people instead of the politics and horror of war. It was more of the everyday life and struggle of the people, especially after the way living with the radiation. I kinda enjoyed this museum more since it was something new for me.

Here is me in front of some golden peace structure nearby the museum.

Kyushu 2023 - Kagoshima to Nagasaki via Train

Morning time, back at the station. There were a few malls nearby, I think we didn't go the this one witg the ferris wheel! In Japan, you can find ferris wheel in almost every city you go to. It's like a thing there. I think I've never been on one in Japan before! The last ferris wheel I was on was probably in Singapore, using some free ride event or a company event.

Last look at the beautiful tram lines of Kagoshima! 

And we're back at the platform again, waiting for our train.

Train spotting. I don't think this is our train. It's called the Midori Express, which translate to Green Express. And I just love the green colour themed of the train. It even has tree logos by the door!

No time for a sit down meal in a cafe, so we got some convenient store sando and black coffee for our first leg of the ride to Shin Tosu. It was only in 2024 that I realised that Shin prefix of a station refers to Shinkansen instead of 'new' as in like Shinsekai. Hahahaha. And now everything made sense for the last 20years! 

Shin-Tosu station is a resort station in a small town. And what's unique about it is, it has an old noodle stop right at the train platform! I thought that was extremely cute! What a nice way to wait for a train. Sometimes I wonder, why in Malaysia and Singapore, there is always a No Food Allowed sign everywhere. I guess we just don't know how to eat on the go cleanly. People are always spilling their drinks everywhere and dropping food here and there.....

Train coming.

Another Shinkansen ride for me! 

Kamome Shinkansen. The name sounds like Come On In! Or Come with Me!

Me and my ticket, inside the bullet train. Yay!

The super wide seats. I could comfortably put my luggage in front of my legs without any issue.

Landscape as we speed pass the country side towards Nagasaki!

Industrial plant. When you think about Nagasaki, you often think about the World War and the Atomic Bomb that was dropped there. So in my head, Nagasaki and Hiroshima are actually extremely futuristic cities since they are radioactive! Lol. So you will kinda spot my bias when I visit these places.

Finally reach Nagasaki!

Kyushu 2023 - Kagoshima Music Shop and Dinner

 

On our way back from Ibusuki, we ended up in Kagoshima JR Station in the early evening, so we had time to browse around the mall nearby. We found a music shop and I went in to looked at all my favourite musicians! Here's my number one rock band in Japan, OneOKRock. I actually prefer their older Japanese tracks. Nowadays they have gone more international, so there are more English tracks, and more pop in nature than the old raw rock music. Still, I think their lead singer has such a beautiful voice! I've been to their concert twice in my life so far. The first was just awesome, but in the second concert I felt that I'm too old now as their crowd is sooooo young!

Another band I really like is Southern All Star, specifically just the voice of the lead singer Keisuke Kuwata. Interestingly, he is actually of Korean decent instead of Japanese. But I think his voice is so darn sexy. Been listening to their songs since I was in university! I tried watching their concern on Netflix once, but the songs were just too old for me! Hahahahaha. 

A tribute to Sakamoto who passed away just around that time I was in Japan. 

And finally for dinner! Steak of course! Yay! I love it when my husband allows me to enter a steak store. Cause I know he doesn't really appreciate steak much. Where else if we went into a seafood store, we both can enjoy the fish. So I guess it's a sacrifice for him to go into a steak store with me? Looking at the price of the dish now, I am wondering why isn't everything expensive to me then? Ah, that's cause in this trip I was still working and drawing a salary! 

Above is my order. It came with a round hot stone at the side.

This one is my husband's. It has a raw egg in the middle to give you that creamy silky taste and texture of the beef slides when you tip it i yolk. 

And this is how I brown the sides of my steak up to my liking. I love the aroma that comes out of it, as well as the oil and juice of a steak. I don't know why, but I extremely love eating medium rare steak. I think the juice and oil of the meat is just so tasty! I thought to myself why I can't be a vegetarian, and steak came up as the number one reason. Which is weird cause I don't really eat it that often. On a good week, maybe once a week? But sometimes I go months without eating it.

After dinner, we wander back to our hotel and have an early night. Got lots of train transfer the next day after we checked out. Here are our tickets! We are headed to our last stop before going back to Hakata. We are going to Nagasaki!