Are there no thefts in this country?!?

Day 2

To get around in Kyushu island we decided to rent a car, Toyota Prius, an automatic hybrid. Very quiet and ridiculously economical. Easy to drive once you get used to the fact that there are no gears, the hand break is actually a foot pedal and the indicators are on the other side of the wheel. The wheel is on the left hand side, the british side, and that was surprising as I would assume they followed the american way. It also comes without the booth cover which means that any baggage left in the car is completely visible!! Are there no thefts in this country?!?

Today we went to Nagasaki. It was a 2h drive with fluid traffic. We are not quite sure what the speed limit is and the signs are a bit confusing. Japanese drive slowly though, about 100Kmph on motorways, and my portuguese blood can't cope with that speed. I hope they don't forward fines abroad...

Lots of motorways, loads of tolls, excelent signage which includes English town names. The car has a built-in GPS which is very handy and also tells you in advance how much the trip will be setting you back in toll fees.

Like Fukuoka, the city isn't the main attraction. However, it has some interesting sights. 

Obviously, a visit to the atomic bomb (9th August 1945) Peace Park is a must and gives a good view to the surrounding mountains. Urakami's Cathedral (it was the largest church in Asia when it was built in 1895, rebuilt in 1959) most interesting aspect, apart from the city view, is the very friendly cat that lounges around there.

From the north part of the city we moved to the south where we walked around in the old quarters where european foreigners lived (Dejima, Dutch Slopes, Glover Garden), colonial-style houses can be visited, the Glover Garden is beautiful and full of my favorite flowers (camellias, magnolias and cherry blossoms) and some have great views of the Nagasaki port.

Whilst walking between quarters we found Megane-bashi, aka 'Spectacles Bridge' because the way its two arches reflected in the Nakashima river look like glasses. It is the oldest stone bridge in Japan built in 1634.

No tourist can leave Nagasaki without tasting and buying Kasutera cake (Castella cake). This cake is though to have been brough to Japan by Portuguese missionaries in the 17th century, who called it at the time Pão de Castela (bread of Castela), hence Castella cake. However, being a portuguese myself, I must say it is exactly like our Pão-de-ló, taste and texture. It's amazing how well copied the recipe was! 

It doesn't matter how good the original recipe is, you can expect the Japanese to have quircked it up. Alongside the original you can buy castella cake with other added flavours (green tea and chocolate), the same cake with different flavours in layers and even castella cake topped with different flavoured toppings. There is no imagination lacking in the land of the rising sun and anything that looks too bland needs to be made more colourful. The cakes are extremely popular and shops selling these can be seen a bit everywhere in the city's touristic areas.

We've also found a kind of pork sandwich which is very popular. It is called kakuni-manju and it is braised pork in a steamed bun which has a kanji (Japanese character) stamped on top. The bun is sweat and the pork is fatty but tasty.

Dinner was once again an affair of pure luck. Nagasaki was pretty dead on Sunday and there were more shops/restaurants closed than open. We looked for a while until we found a restaurant that wasn't expensive and it looked pretty genuine. When it comes to food we are not keen on the touristic beaten track!

As soon as we walked in the waitress warned us they only had menus in japanese. Adventurous as we are, we said that was fine, blind choice always sounds fun. Luckily her english and our japanese were enough to explain the basics and we ended up having another delicious meal of miso soup (not made from package), something that looked like beef sashimi, chicken rolled in cheese and deep fried, rice (obviously!) and a Japanese salade. We were so hungry we forgot to take pictures! The last dish however was the piece the resistence and something the boys had not had before and I had had in London the week before we left for the first time: shabu shabu. This is a kind of hot pot (nabe) of chopped vegetables (cabbage, spring onions, bamboo shoots), pork and squid cooked in a pork broth in a pot on top of the table.

There was a Japanese couple seating not far from us who had a laugh watching us pick from the menu and eating. It's fun to be the odd one out!

At the end of the meal we endevoured to practice our Japanese and said a couple of polite sentences. The waitress was so happily surprised she kept thanking and bowing to us even after we crossed the exit door. I didn't want to look rude so I bowed back but to an outsider it probably looked like I was bowing to the door! How silly I must have looked!

On our return to the car we noticed that a closed shop had part of it's stock outside, probably because the shop is too small for it all. So you close the door and leave your stock outside? To an european that sounds really silly but it probably means there really aren't any thefts around here.