This is definitely a food lover's blog...

Brellowgirl
Oct 24, 2015
4 min read

I know I take a lot of food pictures and I sure do love to eat but I just went through all my pictures from the last 3 days and 99% of them are food related...I might have a problem.

We got into Nagasaki, which is super south of Japan, yesterday evening. It took forever by train but it was pretty relaxing except that we had to switch trains twice to get here. The last train we were in had wood floors in the cars and was super comfy and of course super clean. I actually don't have a problem with putting my bags down on floors in public places here like I do back home!

We're staying at an international hostel called Akari. It's supppperrr cute and soooo clean (which is my favorite part about Japan if you haven't caught on ;) You have to take your shoes off when you enter and wear slippers inside, just like any traditional Japanese accommodation. We got a private room with an ensuite bathroom so we don't have to sharesies with others and it came out to be a bit less than $30/pp/night, sweeet. In Nagasaki there are a few traditional dishes and food items that must be tried so we went out in search of "champon" for dinner. Champon is a type of soupy noodle dish. It's served in a big bowl like pho and the noodles are topped with some seafood, pork and vegetables. I thought it was delicious! To walk off dinner, we walked around an indoor/outdoor shopping mall or "arcade" called Hamanmachi that has over 700 shops. I did a loooott of window shopping. The hardest thing is knowing that I only have a backpack on my back and if I want to buy something to take with me then something from the backpack has to go...

In the morning the first thing i noticed was that there are cats everywhere. I don't know why. The tails on these cats are also really short like they were docked but I think it must be a genetic thing. We took some pictures of an old bridge that is right outside our hostel. It's called Spectacle Bridge (due to the reflection its two arches make in the water). We walked around Chinatown and I got to have Nagasaki kakuni manju which is basically like the steamed pork belly buns you can get at momofuku or other eateries back home (although not as good as off a Japanese street cart hehe).

There's a big confucious shrine in Nagasaki that we went to and I got to take some nice pictures of all the statues of confucious and his apprentices. e trekked over to Glover Garden/house which is the oldest Western style house in Japan and got to see panoramic views of the harbour. We also got to walk to Oura church which was built in rememberance of 26 Japanese martyrs who were crucified in 1597. The church sits on top of a hill and is so beautiful to just look at. On the way down the hill there were all kinds of vendors selling food and goods. I got to try castella which is like a spongey pound cake. There are all kinds of flavor but Tia and I got a traditional cake with vanilla ice cream in the middle.

By this time I was starving for lunch and wanted to try a kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi place that our hostel recommended. It was called wakatakemaru and was on the 2nd floor of a shop in the arcade. It was SO COOL! I mean, I know we have them back home but I've never been and I think the concept is so fun. The sushi goes around and you grab what you want to eat. Each plate color corresponds to a diffrent price point and when you're done, you pay for what you eat! At this place it was about $.80 - $2.00 per plate depending on what you chose. Our bill came to a little over $6.50/pp!!!! Whaaaat. I should have offered to pay ;)

We hopped in a taxi and went to the Nagasaki A-bomb museum and peace park. It was set up similar to Hiroshima's museum but not nearly as big. The recollections from survivors and the artifacts were deeply saddening. The U.S. bombed Nagasaki 3 days after Hiroshima killing over 73,000 and injuring over 74,000. All the pictures of burned children and stories of single family members who survived but lost all their loved ones were horrible. Watching videos of the bombings made me feel sick.

We headed back towards Chinatown shortly after and went to a quaint eatery that specialized in organic foods for dinner. It was buffet style and it was cute to see a Japanese buffet because people here eat so little. Everythng was yummy and I was still full from lunch so I didn't eat much. What I did fill up on though were persimmons! They're so expensive and hard to find back home but they're everywhere here and so good!! I'm back at the hostel now and everyone's asleep. It's 11:45pm here and I'm trying to stay awake to follow Kirk's volleyball tournament in Florida but I can't keep my eyes open. We leave in the morning for Miyazaki so I can always sleep on the train...

I'll catch up with you guys laters.

Much love,

Cas