A Japanese cherry blossom cruise.

[drron29]

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I had some free time before the bus picked us up so wandered the neighbourhood and found a shopping street.Business was not good-

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The one café open had that different use of scallop shells.

After lunch we set sail for Nagasaki.Both of us had a good sleep that afternoon.

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So the next morning as we finished breakfast we steamed into Nagasaki.A surprise was waiting-

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One of the Costa line ships with 3000 Chinese passengers.

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0900 and we were off to the Atomic Bomb museum,Epicentre park and Peace park.

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Folding a thousand paper cranes has long been part of Japanese culture symbolising good luck and often for example given to brides.A young girl who survived the Hiroshima bomb was told of this legend.She apparently folded 1400 cranes but unfortunately died of Leukeamia at the age of 12.Since then the 1000 cranes have become a symbol of the child victims hence all those you see here and in Hiroshima.

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An appropriate password-

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Epicentre park-

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It was then on to Peace Park where there are gifts of various nations to Nagasaki.Sadly none from Australia.There are signs everywhere to not touch or sit on the memorials.I believe the signs were also in Chinese but had no effect.

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The last one is the New Zealand gift.Just after this shot 3 Chinese fellows tried to make it bend a little more.Not surprisingly they had to put a fence around the Chinese gift-

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Our guide placing the ship's contribution of cranes.

Nagasaki was much more restrained than Hiroshima.More like the memories of Hiroshima I have of 32 years ago where history was important to the displays.The only note was like Hiroshima the total number of dead and injured has become the number killed.In Nagasaki's case about 70% of the total casualties were deaths whereas in Hiroshima it was slightly less than 50%.

Before we left Peace Park we just had to have one of these served by a lady at least in her 80s with the icecream shaped like flower and all done by hand.We have no idea what flavour it was-

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A famous survivor.Half the tori gate was left but still stands today.

It was then on to Glover Gardens the residence of A Scot,Thomas Glover.He came to Nagasaki in 1859 working for Jardine Mateson.Two years later he opened his own trading company.He supported the clans opposed to the Shogun and so helped in the Meiji Restoration.The tragic postscript to his story was that his son committed suicide the day after the Nagasaki bomb.

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What is Puccini doing in Nagasaki.Well Madame Butterfly is set here-

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As usual you exit via the museum and gift shop.A few replica Japanese vessels in the museum.Approriate as Thomas Glover was bankrupt in 1870.Was taken on by a powerful friend to help with his businesses in particular ship building.The fellow was Mr.Iwasaki and his business Mitsubishi.

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A church with a nice little business in the basement.

It was then back to the ship with a nice BBQ lunch on the deck.The ribs in particular were great.

After lunch we decided to go for a walk to Dejima Island-well it was an island but now due to reclamation it is part of Nagasaki.It was an artificial island built to contain foreign traders in the Edo period.It was the only place open to foreigners.The Dutch built a trading post there which lasted from 1641 to 1853.First the port area with lots of restaurants-

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Edited August 5, 2016 by drron29

[drron29]

Some of the buildings had displays of what it may have looked like.Others were shops or food places-

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A nice model of the island complete with bonsai-

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Then we walked to a 100 yen shop mrsdrron spied from the bus.Once more finding things she didn't know she wanted.If anyone wants to find it it is over the street from this parking garage-

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So it was back to the ship.Once again a farewell performance this time with Taiko drums.I love it-

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Some movies-

[drron29]

We see more older western style buildings here than most other places in Japan.But first a cemetery-

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We pass an inappropriately named cruise ship-

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They obviously didn't have free laundry.

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Now more port scenery most to do with ship building or repair-

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We saw this and at first wondered what it was-

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It is in fact a new cruise ship.One of 2 being built at the Misubishi shipyards.The first,AIDAprima,sailed for Hamburg in March.This is it's sister ship.

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We formally cleared Immigration before we left Nagasaki as we had a day trip to Korea-due to Japan having very similar maritime laws to us.We docked in Ulsan and were greeted by this which buzzed the ship several times-

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Ulsan is in fact Hyundai City.Not just cars but extensive ship building and other enterprises.It makes up more than 50% of Ulsan's economy.Surprisingly at least 75% of the cars you see are Hyundais.So some shots of the port-

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After clearing Immigration a colourful welcome-

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And a movie of that welcome-

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We set off for Gyeongjiu a UNESCO World Heritage site.The outskirts of Ulsan is just massive high rises-

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And soon our first cherry blossoms

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First stop was the Bulguksa temple.This was originally built in 528,reconstructed 751,burnt down by the Japanese in the 1650s and renovated many times since.

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It is set in a large park and that is the first gate you go through.

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Then you come to the main gate-

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There was still a bit more park to go through before reaching the temple buildings-

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You can no longer use the Sacred steps to get into the temple you have to use a side entrance-

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The Koreans like colour and a real contrast to Japan.More like Chinese colours.Also a love/hate feeling to the cherry blossoms.They do have a festival but the trees were planted by the Japanese and they don't really get along.

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The belief here is that if you can put a stone on a pile of rocks and it stays there your wish will be granted.

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Lots of people making a wish.In the second the little rock on top of the yellowish rock is mine.

The head monk lives behind the red door.Doesn'tk too bad-

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Now we were off to lunch.

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The cutout in the building represents the 9 story pagoda built in the 7th century which was then the tallest wooden structure in the world.But in 1238 the Mongols burnt it down.The river was being repaired-

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It was cherry blossom festival time and they were having their marathon-

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The fellow in red was in poor shape.They should have gone in here-

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Lunch was accompanied by music and dancing-

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Lunch.I thought it delicious,others were not so sure.All the more for me-

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Time to walk of lunch-

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