Right off to explore - the city map is an essential guide as the streets are mostly signed in Japanese and the map with its marked landmarks really helps you get your bearings. As always I recommend taking time out to walk around the city as you get to see under its skin a little, I end up a little lost within the urban sprawl across the hills, winding along tiny pathways between densely packed homes! However, I call it a day when a dog has a bit of a barking fit at me 0_0 However, the pathways do lead to some wonderful little parks and sculptures and I find myself at the old WWII bomb shelters before paying to see the Nagasaki Cultural History Museum (400Y), interesting but a little overpriced (Be prepared to take your shoes off). Also in the area are a number of temples which range from FREE to 300Y to see.
Today is also part of the Lantern Festival in Nagasaki (This is why everywhere was fully booked when I tried from Fukuoka), but as I have somewhere to stay I am free to go and see some of the highlights. There are musicians, parades, magicians and dragon dancing. All are very good but my personal favourite has to be the dragon dancers who really make the dragons come alive! They are a little different from the Chinese dragons as they have smaller bodies and heads but with more detail and more savage expressions but the best part about these 20m long monsters is the fact that the whole body is covered in scales so that when it is dancing its scales rustle and click - Magical. Set to hauntingly weird music the dance is mesmerising - well worth sampling if you see it advertised.
Dinner is at a local restaurant called ‘Chikurin’ just off to the side of Chuo Koen square. There is little English and NO English on the menu - helpfully there are some images… but I cannot understand them either so I point at one and hope for the best… When it comes it is a plate of rice with vegetables a range of seafood and a quails egg - it is wonderful with a fishy sauce and I wash it down with beer for 1080Y/£7ish :)
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