Day 30

After work I braved the hot sun, walked to the bus station, went over my prepared speech in my head, and stepped up to get one ticket to Unzen. However, I couldn't get first few words out before the lady was like "マシンです"--use the machine. Womp womp. So I used the machine, which was even in English. Way to make it easy for me.

But I got my Unzen ticket!

Then, while I was in the area, I figured I'd check out the 26 marytrs memorial. Something about how there used to be a lot of Christians in the city, and then Japan decided to start punishing and exiling them, and 26 people were executed for their religion.


And apparently 3 of them were little kids. :P

While I was walking around that plateau, I found CAT CITY, CAT CAT CITY.




I swear there were at least 10 or 12 cats lying around being lazy and trying to beat the heat. Cat city man.



These signposts are everywhere, making it fairly easy to get around. If you're pretty good with relative directions like me.

I just tootled (toodled?) around town for a little bit and I happened to find THIS!



A famous temple called Shofukuji, with a giant guardian statue.



Above the temple was a cemetery. Based on the previous day's experience, I knew where that led to!



Hoorah! This is such a beautiful vantage point! You can see all of central Nagasaki. The bridge, the port terminal, Dejima, downtown, the hills, Sakuramachi, the station area...they must like to honor their deceased with amazing views!

I wished I could take a panorama, but in one of those awkward point-and-shoot-is-better-than-DSLR-ways, my camera doesn't have a panorama stitch function.





TODAY'S CULTURE TIDBITS


*The Manshon (マンション.)

These exist in every Japanese city of reasonable size. "Manshon" is basically their name for a high-rise apartment building with many many tiny one-person studio apartments and maybe small family apartments. They are the dwelling of choice for college students who don't commute from home or young singles in the city. The fact that "Manshon" came from "Mansion" makes for some potential language blunders.

*Modern-Japanese-architecture. In Europe, I feel like the reason a lot of the architecture is different from what we'd see in the states is because it's so old and everything is SO OLD. But, when something new comes up, it's relatively indistinguishable from something you might see in the US. In Japan, nothing frequently used is that old. Old things are temples and shines and castles, things that are there only for visiting/touristing, but most dwellings and office buildings are all new, for a number of factors (earthquakes, A-bombs, need to compete technologically, etc.) But their "new" architecture is still uniquely Japanese. It doesn't look Western at all. It's good to see that they aren't becoming Westernized in at least one area.

*Shoe of choice for Japanese moms:

ALL. OF. THEM. THEY ALL WEAR THEM.