NAGASAKI
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As the passage into the harbour widened we had our first glimpse of Nagasaki town in the haze of the morning, nestled in a most beautiful inlet at the foot of wooded hills .
Although few visitors these days arrive by boat and the woods are diminished, many would agree with British landscape painter Sir Alfred East, who came here in 1889, that NAGASAKI is one of Japan's more picturesque cities, gathered in the tucks and crevices of steep hills rising from a long, narrow harbour supposedly shaped like a crane in flight.
It's not a particularly ancient city, nor does it possess any absolutely compelling sights. Instead, Nagasaki's appeal lies in its easy-going attitude and an unusually cosmopolitan culture, resulting from over two centuries of contact with foreigners when the rest of Japan was closed to the world, and cemented by its isolation from Tokyo.
