Nagasaki

What has the city of Nagasaki to do with our Big Walk ?
From 1641 when the Dutch trading post was moved from Hirado to Dejima until 1859, that little artificial island in the bay of Nagasaki was the only place in Japan where the Dutch (and no other Europeans) were allowed to trade.

After touching down at Nagasaki International Airport, entering Japan proved to be more difficult than we are used to at Narita Airport. At the immigration desk it was hard to explain why we on the disembarkation card mentioned a 90 days stay in Nagasaki.
Except that 90 days is the maximum allowed stay for a tourist visum they just wouldn't believe in such a long stay in Nagasaki. Shortening my expected stay to 75 days made hardly any difference. Trying to make a non English speaking immigration officer understand that we intended to walk form here to Tokyo also didn't improve the situation.
Presenting a print-out in Japanese language of our website made him even more uncertain than before so he consulted a collegue who did understand some English. This finally resulted in granting us permission to enter Japan.
The customs had much less problems with our intentions, but when we entered the arrival lobby someone with a badge adressed me. I told him that we didn't need a taxi because we would take the shuttle bus but he persisted. He turned out to be a police officer who again wanted to know why we were here and what we wanted to do.
To make a long story a bit shorter we never really convinced him but he was so kind to assist us getting on the bus bound for Nagasaki city.

When we laft the arrival lobby the weather was much colder than we expected for this time of the year on this lattitude (about 35° North): only 11°C and a chilly wind.

Because of his back, LoLie will use a 'Wheely' Mk 2 (a backpack on wheels) for this journey. Unfortunately the Wheely was slightly but very uncoveniently damaged during ground handeling or air transportation so a repair had to be scheduled.
Ebysu Youth Hostel was only 10 minutes walking from the busstop at Nagasaki Main station. After checking-in at about 7 PM, storing our luggage and making the beds, it was time for dinner. From the Hostel-keeper we got a discount ticket for a restaurant in China Town; 'Champon' was the recommandation for 'a cheap but hearty Chinese dish created in Nagasaki', but we ordered another local dish called 'Sauradon'.
When we returned in the Youth Hostel Masaji Kitayama, one the Japanese members in of walking team, had also arrived. Sadly he told us that Katayama-san had some health problems and gave us each a sealed photo so he could 'walk' with us.

The next morning a city sigth-seeing was arranged. It was sunny and the wind less chilly than the day before; in the wind shade it was quiet nice weather. With an old-fashioned tramway we went to the Atomic Bomb area: Museum, location of the Hypocentre, Peacepark, Urakami Cathedral, the remaining but twisted half of the 2nd torii and the still alive camphor trees of the Sanno Shrine.
For lunch our guides took us again to China Town; thereafter we went trough Holland Street to Glover Garden, really nice hill overlooking the bay, and Hollander Slope where the Western foreigners built theis houses after the lift of the seclusion of Japan in the 1860's (because of the for more than 200 years the Dutchmen had been the only foreigners in Nagasaki, all foreigners were called 'Hollander').
At 5 o'clock we were home at the YH and the next priority was the repair of the damaged Wheely. So very soon we were on the road again with the Wheely; at a gas and tyre service station around the corner we found the neccessary tools for repair: a bit of oil, a screwdriver and a little screw.
The last morning we visited our main object in Nagasaki: the reconstruction of the Dutch trading post on Dejima. In the late 19th century the island had become part of a land reclamation but now the outlines are restored and several buildings are reconstructed according old plans and drawings.
After buying lunch we left Nagasaki at half past eleven on a train bound for Hirado.