Day 8 - Wednesday, June 29th

Today I went to Dejima Fort in the morning however it was raining today and cold.  They had people dressed there in traditional Samurai dress . There were several old warehouses. The masters house was nice and big in Western style with a big dining room and tatami mats. When entering buildings with Tatami matts one must take off one's shoes and place them in a shoe rack in a shoe closet or carry them in a plastic bag if they think they will get stolen. At the museum they had interactive displays and they also had an archeology place with ceramic artifacts. There were traditional Japanese living quarters and models of boats and buildings. There also was a garden and a western style house with a room for playing games like tennis, a modern restaurant with fireplaces in the house.  There was a Christian college at Dejima Fort but it is not there anymore. Then we went to the 26 Saint Memorial Museum. It was interesting as it had the history of the persecution of the Christians in Japan, information about who the martyrs were.  There was a documentary about the Coptic Christians and they explained how the Christians in Japan went underground. They also have a lot of relics. Then we went to the Atomic Bomb Museum and it made what happened seem so real. The museum itself was informative about WWII, the making of the Atomic Bomb, the dropping of the bomb and its effect on people, they have lots of artifacts diagrams and eyewitness accounts. In the museum they stress the effects of nuclear warfare and how Nagasaki should be the last place that nuclear warfare is used and it also talks about nuclear warfare today and during the cold war. Then we went to the Uramaki Church. It was nice and quiet but no pictures and it was neat to see a building that was destroyed by the bomb but was rebuilt. Then we went to the Hermitage of a doctor. It showed his life and how he helped the people of Nagasaki after the bomb. It was very inspiring. We went to Chinatown for dinner. It was a small Chinatown but the food was good. For dinner I tried Champon and Sakuradon two local Nagasaki noodle dishes the Sakuradon was fried noodles and the Champon was a noodle soup.