It's a long way to Nagasaki, it's a long way to go!

Today is the second of the three family birthdays that we’ll miss while we’re in Japan – Happy Birthday Keith!!

View from our hotel room

We started today with a bit of a language problem.  I was expecting breakfast to be served either in our room or on the ground floor.  Our room phone rang and a woman’s voice filled my ear with a lot of Japanese.  I picked up that she was saying the number ‘70’ but that didn’t make any sense, so I had to keep saying ‘Gomen, wakaranai’ (sorry, I don’t understand).  After a few more attempts, she came to our door and knocked.  She then showed us to Room 70 which is a hotel room overlooking the harbour, where she had set up our breakfast!

View from Room 70 - our breakfast room

Breakfast was Japanese style, with a bowl of rice, a bowl of miso soup, some thinly sliced vegetables, a pickled plum, soft tofu, fish, an egg in its shell and a cup of green tea.  John really doesn’t like miso soup and pickled plums, so he gave those a miss.  I cracked my egg to peel it – and discovered it was raw!  I assumed that the only possible thing to do with a raw egg was to put it in the soup.  That meant one more thing off the menu for John as he wasn’t going to have the soup anyway.  I was quite full by the end of it and John didn’t do too badly with rice, fish, vegetables and tea.  We never need to fear being hungry as there is a convenience store around every corner!

Breakfast Japanese style

We packed up and left to head for Tomioka, where we were planning to catch the ferry to Nagasaki.  It was a fabulous ride – sunny weather, just the right temperature and a view with the mountains on our left and the ocean on the right.

On the road to Tomioka (note the palm trees!)

Octopus hung out to dry

 We found the ferry terminal with no problems and were then informed that from 1st October the ferry doesn’t run.  I’ll just sit here for a minute while you read the date at the top of this blog.  […"reading the date" music…]   Hmmm!

Our only other option was to ride back some distance to a town called Oniike and catch the ferry to Kuchinotsu, so that’s just what we did.  When we arrived in Oniike, the ferry was just about to leave.  We dashed into the terminal building, bought two tickets and rode onto the ferry just in time.  It was a very pleasant trip over, even if it wasn’t going where we’d wanted to go.

Coming in to Kuchinotsu

From Kuchinotsu, we had a ride of about 70 kilometres in to Nagasaki.  It was a pleasant ride with more good views of the coast, but even with a few breaks (including for a nice convenience store salad for lunch) we arrived in Nagasaki with aching tail bones.

On the road to Nagasaki

The narrow coastal road - with nice views!

We didn't plan to be on this road - but it was a great ride

We checked in to the hotel and then went exploring the local area.  We’re not far from the station, so there’s quite a bit of activity going on.  We found a nice place for dinner then strolled back via the 7-11 for an ice cream.  We’re looking forward to doing the ‘tourists in Nagasaki’ things tomorrow.