Date

2022-12-22, Thursday

Distance

35.48 km biked (3918.11 km in total)

We woke to a quiet Nagasaki morning, the air damp but gentle after yesterday’s rain. The hostel where we had stayed self-service in the truest sense: kept spotless through the collective effort of its guests. The staff had gone home the previous night and would only return in the morning, leaving behind precise instructions for every shared tool and facility. Even the entrance spoke of order — a wall of neatly slotted shoes greeted us, a reminder of the Japanese insistence on separating the outside from the inside.

Our morning ride began with a climb up to Oura Cathedral — Japan’s oldest surviving Christian church, built by French missionaries in 1864. Designated a National Treasure, it once stood as a beacon for Nagasaki’s hidden Christians emerging from centuries of persecution. The admission fee was particularly steep for this modest building, and photography was strictly forbidden inside. Though it felt relatively more curated and polished compared to the humbler sites of hidden worship in this area, it was also a symbol of endurance, a reminder of faith that had survived long enough to stand openly at last.

Outside, while my travel companion wandered off, I encountered two French visitors debating in their native tongue. They seemed hesitant, weighing whether to pay the admission fee. In France, they told me, churches are freely open to all — even the sumptuous Notre-Dame de Paris. Oura’s plain exterior left them doubtful. Surprised and amused to hear an Asian face speaking French at the far west of Japan, they soon turned the conversation elsewhere. Learning of my Taiwanese origin, they began asking about history, colonisation, and the political tensions between China, Taiwan, and Japan. We spoke of democracy at the foot of a Christian church in Nagasaki. 'Democracy is not perfect,' I found myself telling them, 'but it is by far the best political system humanity has ever had.'

From there we made our way to the Nagasaki Peace Park, which opened before us as a wide, contemplative space. Compared to Hiroshima, Nagasaki’s commemorations feel more understated, more subdued. At its heart stood the towering Peace Statue, one hand pointing to the sky, the other extended in prayer for peace. Next to the monuments stood row upon row of colourful paper cranes, folded and strung into garlands, thousands upon thousands of them. They fluttered gently in the wind — a childlike gesture of hope, yet heavy with mourning.

At the hypocentre, where a simple black granite pillar marks the exact point of detonation, the stillness of the square carried an unspoken weight. Around it, an empty plaza stretched in silence, the absence itself speaking louder than any display. Here too stood remnants of the Urakami Cathedral, once East Asia’s largest church, reduced to rubble by the blast. A fragment of its brick wall still remains, scarred yet upright, a witness to both destruction and endurance.

From there we descended into the Atomic Bomb Museum. The exhibits did not shout: they whispered with fragments. Photographs of the flattened city, testimonies from survivors, and the clock stopped at 11:02 all pressed into us more than words could.

Walking among these sites was profoundly sobering. The park and hypocentre struck us with their starkness — an openness filled with absence, inviting each visitor to imagine what once stood, and who once lived, on this ground — beneath it, there was the awareness that this was once the epicentre of unimaginable destruction that occured on 9 August 1945, when this same sky unleashed fire hot enough to melt steel and flesh alike.

Yet Nagasaki is more than tragedy. The city’s unique history as Japan’s sole open port during the Edo period fostered trade with the European and the Chinese, leaving behind a cosmopolitan flavour. Walking the narrow adjacent streets, we caught glimpses of this blend: Chinese temples, Dutch-style brick warehouses, Catholic churches, and Japanese wooden houses all side by side. It felt like a city that had absorbed the world — and survived the worst.

Leaving Nagasaki, we traced a road south to reach tonight's stop Isahaya. The way was anything but easy. Our GPS guided us into the woods, up a one-lane mountain road fit only for kei cars. To our right the hillside dropped away steeply, unguarded by any fence. As we climbed higher, snow began to fall. The ground was too warm for it to settle, but the flakes melted into slickness under our tires. Each turn demanded caution — a single slip could have sent us sliding into the valley.

What made this mountain road particularly hard to endure was its loneliness. Unlike other mountainous regions we had biked through, where villages or fields softened the wilderness, these hills felt stripped of human presence. Down in the valley we could glimpse the occasional scattering of houses, faint signals of civilisation — but up here there was absolutely nothing, only the tight press of trees and the sound of our own breath.

As we climbed higher, snow began to fall. The ground temperature wasn't high enough for snow to accumulate, but the flakes melted instantly on the asphalt, turning it wet and sliperry. The tires hissed over the wet surface, threatening to slip with every turn of the wheel. Each corner revealed yet another stretch of uphill, and with it the doubt of whether the descent would ever come.

We pressed on slowly, our breath visible in the cold, until finally the road descended and the lights of Isahaya appeared ahead. Relief mingled with fatigue: another day survived, another silence carried with us.

The full take — 55 more photographs from this day