Nagasaki is a busy and colourful city but its unfortunate fate as the second atomic bomb target obscures its fascinating early history of contact with the Portuguese and Dutch. Ukrami, the epicentre of the atomic explosion, is today a prosperous, peaceful suburb which encompasses the chilling A-Bomb Museum, an evocative reminder of the horror of nuclear destruction; and the Hypocentre Park, which has a black stone column marking the exact point above which the bomb exploded plus relics and ruins from the blast. A bell in the turtle-shaped Fukusai-ji Zen Temple tolls at 11.02 am daily, the time of the explosion. One of the world's biggest Foucault Pendulums (a device which demonstrates the rotation of the earth) hangs inside the temple.
At the southern end of Nagasaki, a number of the former homes of the city's European residents have been reassembled in the hillside Glover Garden. Moving stairways, fountains and goldfish give it the air of a cultural Disneyland, but the houses are attractive and the views across Nagasaki are superb. An hour north of Nagasaki is Huis ten Bosch, an astounding recreation of a Dutch town, complete with windmills, dykes, a replica of the Dutch royal family's residence, and a cheese shop. Amazingly, this is a residential development with housing for 10,000 people who want to live in a sanitised version of the Netherlands on the southernmost island of Japan.
Nagasaki is a busy and colourful city but its unfortunate fate as the second atomic bomb target obscures its fascinating early history of contact with the Portuguese and Dutch. Ukrami, the epicentre of the atomic explosion, is today a prosperous, peaceful suburb which encompasses the chilling A-Bomb Museum, an evocative reminder of the horror of nuclear destruction; and the Hypocentre Park, which has a black stone column marking the exact point above which the bomb exploded plus relics and ruins from the blast. A bell in the turtle-shaped Fukusai-ji Zen Temple tolls at 11.02 am daily, the time of the explosion. One of the world's biggest Foucault Pendulums (a device which demonstrates the rotation of the earth) hangs inside the temple.
At the southern end of Nagasaki, a number of the former homes of the city's European residents have been reassembled in the hillside Glover Garden. Moving stairways, fountains and goldfish give it the air of a cultural Disneyland, but the houses are attractive and the views across Nagasaki are superb. An hour north of Nagasaki is Huis ten Bosch, an astounding recreation of a Dutch town, complete with windmills, dykes, a replica of the Dutch royal family's residence, and a cheese shop. Amazingly, this is a residential development with housing for 10,000 people who want to live in a sanitised version of the Netherlands on the southernmost island of Japan.
