This morning we arrived in Nagasaki, Japan. We had a tour scheduled for 7:30 am to go to Peace Memorial Park, Atomic Bomb Museum and City Drive. Since we had to go through Japanese Immigration we had to meet for our tour at 6:45 am. This meant that we were leaving too early for room service and had to go to the buffet for breakfast. Things are very orderly in there -- one way in and one way out. They also control how many people are in the area at one time. However, there are still way too many people in there so not my favorite place to eat.
Mary P had gotten sick on our excursion yesterday so they had quarantined her to the room. She wasn't sure if they would allow her off the ship for the excursion. They called her a little after 6:00 am and after a brief talk with her, they released her to go ashore.
When we got off the ship we had to stand in a long line. We were instructed to bring a copy of our passport page with us. First we went to one person who glued a form to the back of our passport page. We then had to go to another line where they took our fingerprints and gave us permission to enter Japan. At one point I was told there was a man holding a machine or something that was taking our temperature as we passed through. I didn't see that one.
Once through all of this we were on our bus right at 7:30 am. The bus was very nice and roomy and we had gotten on the last bus for this tour and it wasn't full so we had lots of room to spread out. I am glad we went early so we could visit the sights before the crowds got there.
Our first stop was Peace Memorial Park. We went through and saw different monuments and our guide Hiroko explained them all to us. At one part we met a man that was a survivor. He comes to the park daily and greets visitors. There was a very brief stop at a gift shop.
Our next stop was the Atomic Bomb Museum. First we walked to ground zero to see where the bomb went off. We then went into the museum. They had lots of displays and you probably could spend hours there but I breezed through things because of the crowds. It would have been more interesting to have had a guide or the audio headsets to listen to as you went through. I went in the gift shop and they didn't take credit cards. I had no Japanese money so I didn't buy anything.
We then went for a brief ride through the city on the way back to the ship. We passed by one place called Lucky's. It looked like a casino, but the machines didn't look like our slot machines. It looked more like Pachinko Machines. I wish it had been closer to the ship so I could have gone back and checked it out.
Our tour was short and we were back on board by 10:30 am. Of course we were hungry so we went up to the buffet (the only place open for lunch) and they were still serving breakfast. We waited until 11:30 am to eat lunch.
After lunch, Pat and I went down to the cruise terminal to get the free wifi since the wifi on the ship was turned off while in Japanese waters. It was very slow and not very productive.
It wasn't long before it was time to eat again. After dinner I went to the show. It was a comedy variety show with Pearson & Harvey. Part of it was good and part of it was not so good. After the show I called it a night.
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