Nagasaki

While visiting Nagasaki we stayed at a spa resort on Ioujima. Check out the iron kettles we sat in while looking out onto the harbor and the volcanic ash we COOKED in at the spa. We had dinner at the resort both nights, the first being a Healthy Meal, the highlight of which was collagen jelly and the second being an entire meal of various courses of fugu. We had fugu sashimi, fugu nabe, deep fried fugu and seared fugu. For this meal we brought the bottle of nama sake that I picked up from the mama-san in Osaka. I had a sake flight with the healthy meal, but, unfortunately, I didn't take notes.

In Nagasaki we visited the Atomic Bomb Museum and we all felt that the displays were much more graphic than those in Hiroshima. If you want to get a first-hand account of the day the bomb was dropped and its aftermath, you should read The Bells of Nagasaki by Takashi Nagai, a doctor who cared for the sick and dying while he was sick himself. It's very moving. Also (on a lighter note) the doctor advocated using sake for medicinal purposes:

"Rice wine, or sake, proved to be an excellent medicine. There were examples of dying persons being cured at the last moment by drinking a large quantity of their favorite sake."

Nagasaki is a sister city of St. Paul's and we were charmed to find a St. Paul Street and even a St. Paul parking garage!