My last journey in Japan was to the island of Kyushu, visiting Fukuoka, Huis Ten Bosch and Nagasaki. Kyushu is Japan's third largest island and is closer to Korea than it is to Tokyo, which allows for strong trade links to the Asian mainland. On our way to Kyushu we took a scenic route along the coast of Japan and stopped at a picturesque lighthouse, the jagged coastline reminded me of the West coast of New Zealand and was very stunning especially with the sun setting.

As it turns out, the Fukuoka area was another hugely undustralised area that I hadn't realised existed, with Fukuoka having a buzzing city centre. Here Patrick and I enjoyed some tonkotsu ramen, pig bone based ramen rather than conventional soy sauce from one of the stalls, by the water front.

The next day we made our way to Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki prefecture, a Theme park based on the Netherlands, with Dutch style buildings and various rides and attractions.

The theme park had this strange theme because of Nagasaki's history of being the first port that Westerners were allowed to trade out of, mainly Dutch in the beginning. Like Yokohama a few Western influences were fed in through this port including badminton. During the isolation period only a small number of Dutch and Chinese traders were allowed to stay in Nagasaki alone, the only external influence in the whole of Japan for this period.

Later we ventured in Nagasaki itself and walked up to the Memorial Peace Museum that was similiar to the one in Hiroshima except it was obviously about Nagasaki. It was also more compact and with a different take on some events leading up to bombing including letters from several prominent political figures urging Truman not to use the bomb. The Peace park was filled with sculptures donated by other countries and it presented some of the studies that the American army did after the bomb was dropped to analyse the devastation.

My next stay will be in another country again now, Seattle is my next stop and with great regret I have to say goodbye to Japan with 30 hours of Transit to get to my next destination.