Nagasaki

© Roy Digital Design

Nagasaki is a bustling city, but most of its history was wiped away by a U.S. atomic bomb on 9 August 1945 that also killed 40,000 and injured 60,000 immediately. During its early history, Nagasaki was an important trading port for the Dutch and the Portuguese, but nothing is left to prove that.

The epicenter of the atomic explosion is at Ukrami, which is nowadays a prosperous suburb. There you will find the A-bomb Museum, where you can see what horrific results the devastating nuclear explosion had in 1945 and many years after. The exact point above which the bomb exploded is marked by a black stone column at the nearby Hypocenter Park. There you can also see ruins and other relics that where left by the blast. In the park's Fukusai-ji Zen Temple a bell tolls daily at 11:02 (AM) daily, the time of the explosion. One of the world's biggest Foucault Pendulums (a device which demonstrates the rotation of the earth) hangs inside the temple.

At Nagasaki's southern fringe is the Glover Garden, which includes a number of the former homes of the city's European residents. The buildings where originate there from all over the area and where reassembled in the hillside there. The houses are quite nice and the views over Nagasaki superb, but the whole area has a sort of cultural Disneyland flavor.

An hour north of Nagasaki is Huis ten Bosch, a recreation of a Dutch town.

There are countless hotels and restaurants in Nagasaki. The city is one the western tip of Kyushu Island, some 970 km southwest of Tokyo.