Nagasaki - Chinatown, Dutch Slopes, Glover Garden - 11 May 2017

entrance gift at Glover Garden

Thursday, 11 May 2017

Today we visited several places not far away from our hotel: we passed 'Chinatown' on our way to the 'Hollander Slope', where the first Western people settled after the ports of Japan opened in 1859.

Chinatown

The houses on the Slope are now a Japanese heritage area and are kept well.

In the old days the view on the Nagasaki harbour from the slope was no doubt much better, coz there weren't any apartment buildings in those days that blocked the view.

We learned about all the missionaries (men and women) that started schools, and all the businessmen that made their fortune in Nagasaki.

On we went with the stairs and the elevator to the Glover Garden, which exhibits mansions of former Western residents of Nagasaki. It is located on the hill where Western merchants settled down after the end of Japan's era of seclusion in the second half of the 19th century and contains several houses of English business men who were very important for the development of Nagasaki and who played a major role in society in those days. Mr. Glover was one of them.

Glover Garden

P.'s into panorama pics

tooo many koi carps

of course Japanese girls dressed up into Scottish costumes from the 19th century

statue of Madame Butterfly; the famous opera of Puccini, which is set in Nagasaki

lazy turtle

the former Alt residence with a 'fence' of white and red roses 

lots of school kids around. These ones 'interviewed' us

lovely roses and a view on the activities in the harbour (Mitsubishi warf)

the Ringer house

time for a beer

the Glover house, which was the first stone house in Japan

The garden is beautiful with great views on the harbour, lovely plants, trees, ponds, koi carps, turtles, birds AND a wonderful terrace where we had a beer. 

Last stop was the first catholic church in Japan; the Oura church, which celebrated its 150th birthday in 2015. It wasn't easy in the early days to be a christian; 26 were crucified by the shogun and are now the 26 saints of Japan. 

cute rabbit bench in front of the church.

On our last evening in Nagasaki we revisited the awesome restaurant which we visited the first evening: again we enjoyed muchly.

Tomorrow we will leave our home in Nagasaki and head for the countryside, first stop will be the vulcanic area of Unzen. Not sure if we will have WIFI there.

dikke kus

Carina

  

Nagasaki - Huis Ten Bosch - 10 May 2017

 Mills and flowers: we stayed till dark, when the park was lovely lit

Wednesday, 10 May 2017

A day in theme park 'Huis Ten Bosch', which is situated approx. 50 kilometers north of Nagasaki. It's amazing how this park resembles a Dutch village. Even the cobble stones have been imported from Holland to give this park a real Dutch feeling.
A lot of famous Dutch buildings have been copied: the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, the port of Delft, the city hall of Gouda, the port of Sneek, the Dom tower of Utrecht and of course Huis Ten Bosch (which btw was closed)

City hall Gouda

photo made from the top of  the Dom tower

Sneekerpoort

Hotel l'Europe in Amsterdam

As in all theme parks there are a lot of food counters, restaurants AND various attractions. For many attractions you have to put a VR headset & headphone on. We did several and had lots of fun, especially in the merry-go-round.  

in virtual reality

health check (all was fine, some even excellent, phew)

overview of the results ... in Japanese 

Robots

amazing robot fishes

VR

wearing this white paper mask under the VR headset is mandatory

We were the only non-Japanese around, except for the Italian musicians. 
Again we noticed there was far too much personnel present, waiting for visitors. Especially in the early afternoon it was very quiet (cold and windy) 
The park is now 25 years old and costed about USD 2.5 Billion (!)

still a lot of fun P.'s new Samsung phone

We had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant on the premises of Huis Ten Bosch, which wasn't bad at all. The espresso wasn't strong enough in our opinion. When I asked to see the espresso machine, and mentioned our opinion, all 5 waiters discussed among each other (panic) and after a while a cup of stronger espresso was placed on our table and 2 waitresses looked at our faces when we tasted. This one indeed was better/stronger.  

When we left the restaurant it was already dark and all the lights gave the park an enchanting atmosphere. Couldn't resist making lots of photos. Showing a few:

Italian musicians at the 'Amsterdam square'

the fountain that looks more Italian than Dutch if you ask me

leaving the park to drive to our temporary home; the Forza hotel in Nagasaki

That's it for today.

Dikke kus

Carina