Kyushu Part 3- Nagasaki at Night

To the west of Nagasaki, opposite Glover Garden, is Inasa-san, a 333 meter mountain looming above the city center. The summit promised amazing views of Nagasaki and the surrounding area, and I was not dissapointed.



I arrived at the cable car station shortly before sunset, and found just one other person waiting to board. Marc, a Nova teacher from Yokohama on a short weekend vacation. We struck up a conversation, and soon became good solid travel buddies. It turned out that he was nearing the end of his time in Japan, and was wrapping up a few travel loose ends. So on his 'weekend' of Tuesday Wednesday he flew down to Nagasaki, which was actually both cheaper and shorter than taking the Shinkansen!



From the summit, the views were glorious. I mean this was certainly one of the top sunsets I have ever seen, and coming from Colorado I have seen some nice ones. These photographs, while I am proud of them, simply do not do the view justice at all. It was amazing. And we had it all to ourselves... for a while.



As it got darker and the night view of the city came out, people started to accumulate in small groups. Well small until a huge school group showed up. Like any school group, they were loud just by being a group of 80 or so high school students. Yet these were really really loud. Shouting at their friends strung across the summit. Yelling, giggling and generally making asses of themselves. *sigh* and I thought American tourists were annoying.



Well we had our pictures, so Marc and I fled the growing school crowd for the safety of the cable car home. We exchanged numbers and then headed back to our respective hotel rooms to drop off cameras and such. Then we met up with another guy that Marc had met earlier, a Dutch man whose name I have forgotten. Renee maybe? Anyway, he was awsome, and on a 6 week vacation in Japan. We hit up an izakaya, where I tried Basashi. Think, horse sashimi. Yup, nice slices of RAW HORSE! Actually, it tasted great. I mean it, not only was it not disgusting, but I liked it. Who would have thought? Well after a couple of beers and some pool it was time to hit the sack in preperation for a 10:00 check out and our trip to Kumamoto.