Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum: A sad story

Next we went to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.

Too bad no photo taking was allowed. The museum was generally separated into 3 sections: First was the display of ruins from the Atomic Bomb. Next was the Science and History part. Science teaching you more about the atomic bomb, its damages etc. History telling us the sequence of the arms race and development of the Atomic Bomb, and of course, a summary of World War 2. A little know fact is that this atomic was not intened for Nagasaki. Its original target was a town slightly north, called Kokura. But due to bad visibility weather conditions, the pilot wasnt able to drop in in Kokura. Running low on fuel, the next best target was Nagasaki. (Nagasaki was quite unlucky then)


Next to the Museum was the memorial park. Its almost april now, and some of the SAKURA(cherry blossms) are starting to bloom.

Here is GROUND-ZERO where the bomb landed. Luckily I was not standing here on 9th August 1945 at 11am.

This ugly-looking(in my opinion) statue behind me is the peace statue.

A fountain in the park....

A memo from a victim of the disaster:

........I am so thirsty and I cant bare it anymore. A layer of greasy stuff floated on the water. Whatever it is, I need water. At last, I just drank the greasy stuff as it is......

A sad story... everyone who has studied physics or chemistry will be able to explain what exactly was going on.... Nuclear fusion, Gamma rays, protons, isotopes... blah blah blah...

Nagasaki

Today, I met up with a fellow NUS friend Tian Long (TL). Our first stop is Nagasaki, just 3 hours bus ride away.


Being deligent and hardworking undergrads, our first stop was undoubtedly Confucius Temple.


Nice landscape in the temple itself.

Btw, in case u dont know, Confucius, aka 孔子, is a damn smart guy in ancient china. His disciples invited magnificiant things like an earthquake sensor, weather forcast instruments, ion detector etc etc.
Therefore, we have reason to believe: If we pray to Confucius, we will become smarter :)




























YUPPIE, i instantly felt smarter after praying. Lets hope that i will score distinctions in my upcoming tests/exams.

Next up, we went to take photos with some of Confucius's disciples. They were all stone statues lined up around the temple.


As u can see, i blend in well with the other disciples.


A picture of me and Mr Han Fu Hei.


We then dropped by Nagasaki's Chinatown in the hope to find something good to eat. After a week in Japan, I kinda start to miss chinese food.


Me and TL in a nice chinese restaurant along Chinatown.

This is some sort of Tou Fu Rice
This is Tian1 Jin1 Rice (天津饭). Basically, its just omelette egg with some salty gravy on rice.

Nothing very speical actually. We were slightly disappointed.. perhaps chinese food back home is still better (and of course, much cheaper)

Detour

With some extra time to spare, i decided to detour to a nearby SMALL TOWN called Nakagawa, in the hope to find something INTERESTING/UNEXPECTED.

The map looks interesting. There are reads, fountains, parks etc...

These were the pictures taken around the train station. Alas, (or should i say "as expected") it was nothing more than a boring small town...

Sigh...

Exploring Hakata

Today, I was alone... so i decided to explore the place myself.

First stop, Fukuoka tower. Architecture looks impressive, but its only about 30 floors high. Any normal housing flat in Singapore would have easily beat that height. But over there, it was the highest, as compared to its surrounding buildings.

The view from the top was quite impressive...

You can see the surrounding buildings. That weird looking land protruding out into the sea is actually a CHURCH!. Thats my next stop.

The church was beautifully decorated with flowers. As there was a privte wedding event going on, I was not allowed to enter the church.. could only take pictures form the outside..

I took a short walk along the beach to reach FUKUOKA YAHOO DOME.

(In Japan, they use the word "Dome" instead of "stadium")

So effectively, this is their national stadium (sponsored by "yahoo", i guess) where most of their baseball matches are held.

Their regional team called "HAWKS". That is probably why they delicated the name of the adjacent town to be called "Hawks Town" :)

I continued walking, and i found this:

Does this remind you of the typical HDB flat we see in Singapore?

Yup, i actually took this picture in Kyushu, Japan!! The layout of the building structure is pretty similar.

Next stop: Odori Park

Just a lovely park with lots of birds, fishes, ducks and people picnicing

My FUGU experience

FUGU (aka pufferfish/blowfish) is a specialty of Kyushu. As it is a POISONOUS fish, any mistake by the chef in preparing the fish can be fatel. Anyway, it is a "MUST TRY" delicacy in Kyushu!

We splurged quite a bit on this meal, but it was quite a satisfying one...

Nice exterior of the restaurant, with a cute picture of a FUGU
Authentic Japanese setting

Even the chopsticks holder is in the shape of a FUGU!! so cute!

Before the meal, Audun took some time to write his will, just in case anything goes wrong... BLAH.... Too bad none of his money goes to me.. :(

Sumptuous meal served. Apart from the FUGU(grey colour slices of meat), there were a dozen other side dishes, such as tempura, vegetables etc etc..

The correct way of eating the FUGU meat is to first wrap it around some vegetable, then dip in a unique blend of sauce.

Pics of me and Audun taking our first bite of the FUGU meat. Luckily nothing happened after that, else i wonldnt be here writing this blog.

The meal also came with a special kind of FUGU SAKE(Japanese wine). A fugu tail fin is used to add flavor to the wine.

The waitress heated the sake before serving. You can see the blue flame over the SAKE.

It was really HOT....

Next up was a steamboat dish prepared by the waitress....

The remaining soup from the steamboat was then used to cook porridge. BTW, the stock used earlier for the steamboat was actually made by boiling FUGU fish bone. No wonder the porridge is so tasty...

Last but not least, dessert....

Yuppie, we conquered the poisonous FUGU!!