Not since my Adidas-donning days in my hometown Croydon (famous as the breeding ground of chavs) in southeast London, have I ridden trams around town, and even then it was only to pick up a Chinese take-away and buy the odd large hoop earring. So, when I visited Nagasaki with a couple of friends, touring a major city entirely on trams in a country where trains and buses are the primary mode of transport in city centers, it felt oddly nostalgic and slightly surreal. The fact that it cost only 500 yen for an all-day pass only added to the feeling that we had slipped back into the good times of old.
And indeed, most of the tourist sites in Nagasaki recall the city's connection with the past, though the memories are not all happy.
Medieval Nagasaki was the only port opened for foreign trading until Commodore Perry arrived in 1853 to demand an end to the sakoku period (literally meaning "a country locked up"); and modern Nagasaki echoes this international atmosphere, displaying signs in Korean and Chinese as well as English. Yet, it is also a city in permanent mourning for those who suffered a more violent force from the Americans on Aug. 9, 1945, when the second atomic bomb ever to be used in warfare killed over 73,000 people and injured many more. There are peace memorial statues and exhibitions scattered around the city in connection with the bombing, but the must-see port of call is the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Hall.