August 2008: Nagasaki, Japan.

My first trip to Nagasaki 12 years ago, I remembered rushing to a ramen shop once we stepped off the train. We were that hungry.
I remembered there was a then a boy of subnormal intellect sitting with the cook on the other side of the counter. I assumed then that it was the effect of the atomic bomb that was dropped here, having passed down through the gene.
In the Nagasaki youth hostel then, while taking a bath, I have this creeping feeling that wandering souls was outside in the courtyard.

Having seen on the news that it would be the 63rd anniverary of the A-bomb drop in Nagasaki around the time I am in Kyushu, I decided to revisit the place.
I missed the official memorial service at the square with the Peace Statue. I was at a smaller venue, where peace protestors were gathering. As I tried to make my way to the official site, I saw a middle-age lady hurrying down a narrow
path towards the protestors. Then siren started sounding over the city and that stopped her in her track. With hands close to her chest, palm-on-palm, and head bow, she said her prayer. At that moment 63 years ago, a feets step away from where she was, the A-bomb came down on Nagasaki.
That done, she hurried back up the same path, probably to her chores.

With a harbor fronting the city, Nagasaki is a picturesque place. And every buildings look new and nice, with none of the old houses one may encounter in places like Sado or Kyoto. You realise after a while that has to do with the fact the almost all the could be old was wiped out on 9th August 1945, 11:02am.

Anyway, Kyushu, it seems, has the nicest train design. It may have to do with the fact that it welcome tourists from Korea and China via the Fukuoka harbor.