NAGASAKI

Not much is happening.  Sure, Tuesday was a small election day in the U.S., Donald Trump showed more disgruntlement in court and the Israel-Hamas War sort of continues.  Maybe the most newsworthy might be: 

Third GOP debate: Five candidates qualified for tomorrow's third GOP presidential debate in Miami: former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. One candidate fell short. Meanwhile, Donald Trump will skip the debate (again) to rally in a city that is 95% Hispanic and where he has broad support. 

About our cruise, I've visited Nagasaki at least a dozen times in the past.  Their Peace Park is a more rewarding visit than the one at Hiroshima, which is more famous.  Some highlights from the past.

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  Here is my posting of 2010 where I mentioned that on an earlier trip my wife and I discovered Nagasaki pork tonkatsu.

Not quite the smooth transition, but while in Nagasaki, you must try their pork cutlet (or tonkatsu).   While supposedly originating in Europe, or, maybe, Tokyo after the end of the second world war, Nagasaki has perfected this dish into an unmatched crispness and delicacy.  The experience is somewhat like when I first had Shanghai dumplings in Shanghai...not quite the Hawaii version

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  A dozen years ago I was escaping from the radiation approaching Tokyo because of the Fukushima nuclear cataclysm.  I said:

Nagasaki is a prefecture (like a state, with a population of 1.2 million) and city (446,000), not too dissimilar from Hawaii and Honolulu, and someone should look into a sister city relationship. This has long been a cosmopolitan harbor and remained somewhat accessible to Europeans even during the closed period of Japan's history.  The Portuguese first came in 1543, with the Netherlands dominating a century later through the Dutch East India Company, but this was all of two ships per year.  They copied the craft of Japanese porcelain, who themselves borrowed the technique from Korea.  You've of course heard of Imari porcelain, where a bowl can cost $2,000.

• In 2017 I visited the Nagasaki Peace Museum and took this photo of Fat Man, the plutonium atomic bomb that exploded over this park.  The second photo is that of a hydrogen bomb, and the third was my lunch, musubi and sake.

My most recent visit to Nagasaki was in 2019, where we also visited the Peace Park, led there by my Blue-bar Pigeon, then had pork tonkatsu at Inaba, the best restaurant for this dish in the world.

So, anyway, back to our present stay in Nagasaki, the port here is the birthplace of the Diamond Princess.

We looked at the port map and I noticed that You Me Plaza was close by, perhaps a half hour walk.  This is where the last time we were in Nagasaki we had a pork tonkatsu lunch at Wako Inaba.  Of course we were first met by my Blue-bar Pigeon.

Fall colors.

You Me Plaza.

Unfortunately, Wako Inaba did not survive the pandemic, and we were sent across the street to Hamakatsu, which was okay, but not fabulous.

We then walked back to the ship.

Saw a class outing.

The Diamond Princess was docked just across the way, entering service in 2004, almost twenty years ago.

Goodbye Nagasaki.  Serenaded by a drum group.

We are into the second week of November, and not much can be seen of Fall colors yet.

We sail for two nights, and will arrive in Yokohama on November 9.  But first, dinner, and this was formal night.

Clarence and Cheryl picked up the tab for an Argentinian Chardonnay and a French Bordeaux, which was decanted.

I started with escargot and caesar salad.

While others had surf and turf, I had duck breast.

For dessert, crème brûlée.

The ship's captain came by to say hello.

We then ended the evening at the theater stage show.  They were really good.

A good walking day, 9851 steps.

At sea yesterday lunch was Japanese, with hot sake and cold beer.

Didn't say much about the atomic bomb over Nagasaki, but, after Oppenheimer, there have been various artcles about the menace of nuclear warfare.  Here is one rating the seven most devastating films about this bomb.  #1 was the 1947 The Beginning or the End.

• Good cast of Brian Donlevy as Major General Leslie Groves, Robert Walker, Tom Drake, Audrey Totter and Hume Cronym as Robert Oppenheimer, directed by Norman Taurog.
• Here is the entire 1 hr 52 min movie.
• This MGM film was the first major Hollywood production about the atomic bomb.
• Considerable creative control was given to President Harry Truman and Major General Leslie Groves.

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*FUKUOKA TO NAGASAKI

Every day brings new shocks to Japan.  This one today was that the radioactivity measured around Fukushima #2 is 1000 times higher than the leaked water in the basement, but 10 million times higher than the usual cooling water for the reactor.  I fear this omission, but I wonder why there is never a mention about any plutonium leakage from Fukushima #3.  The deaths are just at around 9,500.   However, click on some photos of pets at the tsunami site.  Incidentally, Shanghai now has a one dog per family policy, but they're considering relaxing the one child limit.

I've noticed that you rarely see a beggar in Japan, but you do see teams of Japanese students collecting money for the victims of the Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster.

They scream their pleas as loud as they can to get your attention.  I don't see much money, though, being donated. They need to re-think their strategy, for people are trying to avoid them.

It is a pleasant two hour train ride from Fukuoka to Nagasaki.  The JR Kyushu Hotel Nagasaki is right at the station.  Very convenient.

After check-in I asked where was the best spot for tonkatsu today and the premier Nagasaki restaurant for lunch tomorrow.  Seiyoutei was by acclamation #1 for pork cutlet, but it took them half an hour of calling, where they found out that the top establishments have a minimum sitting for two, that something was found just across the street in the New Nagasaki Hotel.  Somehow, I'm not impressed that this can be the best.

I quickly left the hotel at 1PM hoping to get to Seiyoutei in time for lunch.  Here is another tribulation of travel:  not knowing how to pay on the tramway.  I got on okay and noticed the cost was 120 yen.  However, I only had a 500 yen coin.  So, while I was trying to determine what to do, I neglected to press the button for the stop, so the car went whizzing past.  On a Shinkansen, you can miss by a 100 miles, but I stressfully walked another 15 minutes, which brought me to Seiyoutei at 1:40PM.  Thankfully, it was still open.  Amazingly enough, this was the same place that Pearl and I had our first Nagasaki tonkatsu.

There is something different about Nagasaki pork cutlet.  The panko (Japanese bread crumbs) is so light, that the effect is like eating crispy air.  Eddie Flores of  L and L needs to visit this restaurant to make their cutlets more edible.

As you can see to the left, there is a huge pile of sliced cabbage, rice and miso soup.  I had a beer and hot sake.  Like in 95% of the restaurants throughout the Orient (Singapore, Thailand, China, South Korea, Japan), the background music was American, and this is usually soft jazz from the 50's, Frank Sinatra, or something similar.  Absolutely fabulous lunch.  At 2:45 when I left, the place was still filled.

I noticed there was an outdoor seafood grill your own restaurant, which smelled great, and is something I should try someday:

These restaurants are located at the Nagasaki Port tourist complex:

Nagasaki is a prefecture (like a state, with a population of 1.2 million) and city (446,000), not too dissimilar from Hawaii and Honolulu, and someone should look into a sister city relationship. This has long been a cosmopolitan harbor and remained somewhat accessible to Europeans even during the closed period of Japan's history.  The Portuguese first came in 1543, with the Netherlands dominating a century later through the Dutch East India Company, but this was all of two ships per year.  They copied the craft of Japanese porcelain, who themselves borrowed the technique from Korea.  You've of course heard of Imari porcelain, where a bowl can cost $2,000.





On the way back, I noticed a pachinko parlor called:

Tomorrow I visit the historical one where Fat Man fell on 9August1945.  There is something eerily parallel about Nagasaki/Hiroshima and Fukushima 65 years later.  I'm here to make that connection.  The Peace Park is especially memorable with the Sakura at full bloom.  While they are blossoming in DC, I wonder if they will be there to greet me where the Atomic Bomb fell.

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