12 November 2018
I can see in the dark
Walking along the old Chinese streets of Nagasaki
Nagasaki is dark. As you shall see, my camera can see in the dark, so tonight I wandered around and took shots that make pitch black things slightly less than pitch black. I was very happy with my new found ability to see in the dark.
The Chinese area of Nagasaki, listed as the former Chinese quarter, still has a heap of little Chinese temples, old buildings, streets, cats.
Like everything in Nagasaki it extends up a hill, there will be a lot of hills while I am here. Lots of streets are not suitable for cars or even bikes as they just throw in a few random steps in the middle of the street due to the steepness. These are great for tumbling down in the dark.
I have also now studied the map a bit and realised that over the next 2 nights there are a couple of other centres of the city to explore. Basically follow a tram line and you get to what looks like a shopping and dining area.
Much like Hiroshima, they have old rattly trams here. Theses are a feature of cities that have had an atomic bomb dropped on them. I do seriously wonder if they are kept for that reason, I know in Hiroshima that the first thing running again after the bomb was the tram. Perhaps Nagasaki is the same, they are proud how fast they got the trams going again, so now they will have them forever.
And now, into darkness.
Just beyond the neon Chinatown, which I will show later, is the real actual old Chinatown. Although this gate looks quite new, it is the new gate to the old Chinatown. Actually there was an even newer looking gate being erected but the bit across the middle wasnt in place yet, or perhaps it had been knocked down. All I know is, Chinatown gates are being erected all over Japan.
This narrow street used to be all Chinese opium traders.
Here we have the first of the Chinese temples for the evening.
This little one is the best. There is a third one but the gate was shut and I could not get a good photo.
The streets extending up steep dark hills were very interesting. Cats were darting about everywhere.
I descended back to new neon Chinatown, which was very quiet at night. Perhaps like the Yokahama one it caters to bus loads of day trippers.
Time to head back up a hill. I noticed that everywhere was a named shopping street of some kind. Generally with signs explaining something important about them.
I wondered why this old building was in the middle of the road. Strange place for a shop I thought. Except its the police station.
There were 50 cats in this park, and an army of people feeding them. If you are a cat and reading this, get on the next flight to Japan.
I followed the tram to the end of the line at the top of a hill. Every tram looks to be a different model and color scheme. I suspect they collect all old trams from around Japan to keep the service going here.
Another shopping street, most of the old fashion stores close at 7pm.
This market was still open. The grumpy old man who owns it lurks in the shadows, competing with me in a glaring contest.
And...another shopping street. You probably cant see the school girls clearly, but I have noticed they all have short style boy hair cuts here. Very weird, I have not noticed that trend elsewhere. Not that I make a habit of comparing school girls.
There are a huge amount of weird old junk shops in Nagasaki. Some of them stay open late too.
Now we start our tour of the famous stone bridges. I dont know if they are old, I dont know if they survived the bomb. They appear to me to be in very good condition.
In a few places you can climb down to the waters edge for a better angle, and a long exposure like this one.
This bridge is called the 'spectacles bridge'. Handheld 1/10, nice reflection, best photo of the evening.
As often happens, my final photo this evening is my dinner. I think my dinner was Chinese. Or Singaporean. It reminds me of the dry noodle you get there with the sticky sauce. I was not really sure what I ordered, but it had 4 chillis on the menu and nothing else had more than 2, so it was an easy decision. I had assumed it was vegetarian, it wasnt. I also suspect it to be Chinese because it came with hot and sour soup rather than miso. Anyway, it was ok, the noodles were cold but the stuff thrown on top was hot. The raw egg in the middle is however a Japanese addition.