Monday 1st April

Another day in the freezer, spent rugged up.

Off we went to see Oura, Nagasaki's oldest Catholic Church, set on the edge of a hill in a small precinct of Dutch influenced buildings. In the adjacent old seminary building, was a fine exhibition about the checquered history of Christianity in Japan. Introduced in the 16th century into Nagasaki by the Portuguese & tolerated for many years it had up to 400,000 followers. The Shogun saw it as a threat & banned it in 1614 with very repressive measures. It was finally allowed to return again in the Meiji period.

Above the church was a hill with Glover Gardens with several houses built by foreign entrepreneurs in the Meiji period from the late 1860s. Glover set up what became Mitsubishi as steel & ship builders, as well as Japan's first international shipping line & what became, the Kirin breweries. Others also helped the development of industry there & built houses & gardens, now a magnificent park overlooking the shipyards & the river.

After lunch we took a small ferry to Gukanjima, 'Warship Island', 15km out in the estuary. The ride was exciting, to say the least, as the 65ft boat bashed into short chop & was rocking & rolling everywhere. The island was the site of an undersea coal mine set up in the 1870s & abandoned in the 1970s. It is a bizarre place with huge concrete blocks of units which housed ap to 5000 people at its height. Today it looks like a wartime bombsite with rubble everywhere & we were glad to board the boat for our return. Returning to our hotel we had an early night.

On our return we visited Dejima, an artificial island in the river, on which the Portuguese & later the Dutch were confined in the 17th Century. This was the only place where foreigners could live in Japan & from here they conducted their trading with the Japanese. It reminded us of the Ghetto in Venice in its isolation. There were well restored buildings which showed how they lived & worked until trade to the world was opened up in the Meiji period. The copper warehouse was fascinating as it showed how copper was mined throughout Japan & was then smelted into 1kg bars which were shipped to Europe.

Tuesday 2nd April

Started off on another cool day at the nearby Suwa Shinto Shrine at the top of 100 stairs. This had been destroyed first by Christians, rebuilt & then again by fire, with the present one dating to the 19th century.

Then on to Yobuko, a small fishing town famous for its street market selling squid, mostly in compressed form. We found this a bit sad as the vendors were mainly very ancient ladies & sales were slow. Further down the road we discovered a fascinating old house, now a whaling & sake brewing museum.

Finally, we went to a Nanatsugama National Park, famous for the the '7 Pots' which are caves in the cliffs of unusual basalt rock formations similar to the Devil's Causeway in Ireland. The rocks form multi sided solid pillars in layers, which have been bent over millions of years but break off into smaller stones. The party's interest here was somewhat modified by the cool conditions so we left early to get to our hotel at Fukuoka, by 3pm.

d*** went straight to bed with a streaming cold & a terrible, silly cough.

Wednesday 3rd April

After a very poor night for both, from Dick's coughing, we set off for Hiroshima. As before, our route took us on very smart expressways through yet more tunnels & across fine bridges. All flat land is used either for housing, industry or small scale agriculture & every river we crossed was canalized between high levees. All hilly or mountainous ground seemed to be covered in dense forests which looked impenetrable.

Before arriving in Hiroshima, we took a ferry across to Miyajima, a small island. Just off the beach is a Great Torii Gate which marks the entrance to the Itsukushima Shinto shrine The island was very crowded with tourists after visiting the shrine we wandered around through the old quarter, admired the small deer which roamed the street & a very fine Pagoda. d*** enjoyed grilled squid on a stick.

Then on to our hotel for another early night.