Page 249 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide: Japan

NA GASAKI  247

to the bombing, the
his tory of nuclear
weapons, and the
evolution of the
peace movement.
Photographs, arti­
facts, videos, and
dioramas vividly
re­create the event.
A clock, frozen at the
Tulips by the canal in Huis Ten Bosch moment the bomb
exploded, is one of
Y Peace Park the most poignant items.
v Matsuyama­machi.
A black stone pillar marks the  Huis ten Bosch
spot where the US detonated its Near Sasebo. £ Huis ten Bosch. The scenic Nita Pass in the
second atom bomb at 11:02 on Tel (0570) 064­110. Open daily. & Shimabara peninsula
August 9, 1945, three days after Built in 1992 at the staggering
Hiroshima. The intended target cost of US$1.75 billion, Huis r Shimabara
was the nearby ship yards. The ten Bosch is a reproduction Peninsula
blast killed an estimated 75,000, of a traditional Dutch village. Shimabara Peninsula
while 75,000 more were injured Re plete with churches, houses,
in its wake. Small wonder that shops, windmills, a farmhouse, Nagasaki prefecture. £ Shimabara city.
the citizens of Nagasaki have and canals, it is one of the g from Kumamoto. n Unzen Spa
become staunch advocates of largest theme parks in Japan. (0957) 73­3434; Shimabara Peninsula
world peace, erecting several Replicas of Queen Beatrix’s Tourism Association (0957) 62­0656.
monuments in the park, palace and of Holland’s tallest
in cluding a 9­m (30­ft) tall Peace church tower are highlights. Ruled until 1616 by the Christian
Statue. A 1959 reconstruction of Horse­drawn carriages, old­ Lord Arima, Shimabara penin­
the Urakami Catholic Church, fashioned taxis, and canal boats sula is known as the site of
which stood at the epicenter, complete the picture. anti­Christian pogroms ordered
stands near the park. by the Tokugawa shogunate.
 Penguin Aquarium How ever, in the 1880s, Unzen
P Atomic Bomb Museum £ From Nagasaki stn to Spa became a resort for West­
Tel (095) 844­1231. Open daily. & Suizokukanmae. Tel (095) 838­3131. erners. At an altitude of 700 m
This museum is a must for Open daily. & (2,300 ft) and surrounded by
anybody visiting the city. Children and adults will enjoy pine forests, it was an ideal
Dis plays depict Nagasaki before this aquarium, which has a retreat from the summer heat.
and after the explosion and huge 4­m (13­ft) deep pool Thou sands of azaleas bloom
also the reconstruction. It traces for the penguins to frolic in the peninsula in spring, and
with great objectivity and in. There are nine different in autumn the maple leaves
fairness the events leading up types of penguin here. turn brilliant shades of red. In
1934 the Unzen-Amakusa
National Park, Japan’s first such
Foreigners in Nagasaki
protected area, was created.
The Portuguese and Dutch were the first to arrive when the harbor Most hotels in Unzen Spa
opened to international trade in 1571, followed by Chinese merchants have their own hot­spring
who established their own community. Portuguese cargos of guns baths. Visitors in a more som ber
and Catholicism, however, mood can see the notori ous
foreshadowed Kyushu’s troubled Hells (Jigoku): scalding
history of rebellion and sulfurous cauldrons in which 30
persecution. Only the Dutch Christians were boiled alive after
were allowed to trade between the outlawing of Christian ity in
1638 and 1854. After the port Japan. As a demonstra tion of
reopened, British, American, the ferocity of the waters in the
French, German, and Prussian
trade missions came to the city. Hells, elderly ladies in bonnets
The legacy of this extraordinary and smocks lower eggs placed
foreign contact survives in some in baskets into the pools and
of the local festivals and cuisine, sell them hard­boiled to tourists.
like the Portuguese castella, an Mount Unzen, thought to be
egg­and­flour­based sponge dormant until one of its peaks
cake, and the Chinese champon Replica of the 17th-century Dutch cargo erupted in 1990, can be climbed
noodles, invented in 1899. ship Prins Willem from the Nita Pass, reached by
bus from Unzen.

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