24 Hours in Nagasaki | 6 Things to do in Japan's Hidden City

[Applause] i've been wanting to see this place for years that is like the weight of a small child [Music] good morning guys and welcome back to journey across japan the lost islands this morning we are in nagasaki check it out in quite the journey a thousand kilometers across kyushu the last few days we've been in cessnas we've flown over volcanoes we've danced on volcanoes we've rode a horse and been to an abandoned island but all good things come to an end and today we're in nagasaki city the last major city in japan that i've yet to visit and i'm really excited to kind of immerse myself in it once and for all because it looks absolutely stunning the city is surrounded by mountains on all sides we are going to go visit gun kojima battleship island later today but before that let's go and see how the guys are doing oh god good morning guys how you doing good morning last day of your trip natsuki how you feeling yeah good fun week but i'm in a sad very sad very sad sad oh my god oh my gosh yeah it seems we have a very different definition of the word sad but first things first we got the last challenge of journey across japan the lost islands you guys have sent in over 5 000 challenges this last week whittled down to three every day by production team but the challenge today is from lc underscore 224 who says bring back dr jelly oh my god [Applause] no journey across japan would be complete without the world's tackiest and crappiest character speak for yourself i believe it's one of the best characters ever made three times this will be the third time yeah one time energy jelly energy second time you're hand jelly hands cleverly promoting your own product what else is there left we've pretty much done every jelly that there is what's going on what is going on oh [ __ ] grease is a hair [ __ ] thanks natsuki yeah hair gel what you needed okay i need hair gel this time dr hair jelly dr hair jelly yeah i'm not so enthusiastic about this that's actually a good idea let's make it you think that's a good idea i mean i don't know what other jelly you can think of what about food jelly no no no no [Music] surrounded by islands and nestled in a valley on the shores of the east china sea nagasaki feels pretty remote for a major japanese city between its location and the absence of a bullet train the sad truth is most tourists and travelers never get to visit myself included and it is a shame given that nagasaki has a rich cultural in the 1500s the portuguese were granted permission to trade at nagasaki port which quickly became a bustling hub with traders bringing tobacco bread and textiles while missionaries successfully converted the local population to catholicism until the religion was banned in 1614 by ruler tokugawa iyasu who saw catholicism as a threat to the stability of the country a ban that remained in place until 1871 but just as the western world shaped nagasaki's history it also brought its destruction when in the closing days of world war ii an atomic bomb was dropped on the city reducing it to ashes and taking the lives of around 75 000 people unlike hiroshima and the skeletal remains of the a-bomb dome in nagasaki physical remains of the devastation are harder to find those statues and monuments serve as a powerful reminder to the events of that day including the iconic yet haunting peace statue with the right hand pointing towards the sky reminding us of the danger of nuclear weapons while the left hand symbolizes eternal peace and 500 meters from the epicenter outside the front of the urakami cathedral the charred statues continue to stand as a chilling reminder as the last remaining remnants of the original cathedral over 75 years later it remains the most recent deployment of a nuclear weapon in wartime but walking around the modern city it's easy to feel a sense of optimism that if a city like hiroshima or nagasaki can rebuild itself and overcome something as powerful and destructive as an atomic bomb the mankind can pretty much overcome anything walnetsky sneaks off to do some cheeky shopping for local souvenirs joey and i head to downtown nagasaki's vibrant chinatown district to try some local dishes natsuki doesn't know what he's missing [Music] lunch time what you got joey hakuni manju kakuni manchester slow cooked pork in a flour and rice based patty oh and i've got some cheese in it as well yeah because i know you like cheese you know the way to my heart joey anything with cheese only 500 yen as well 500 yen it's a steal i'm quite worried we're surrounded by like 200 pigeons right now so gotta eat this quick before things get out of hand that's so tender very tender cheese is actually pretty good yeah and the the bat is very fluffy and light the pork just sort of breaks apart in your mouth beautiful braised pork so this is a chinese if you're in chinatown right there's another dish called champo it's a really big part of cuisine down here champon is from here in nagasaki it's from this area of nagasaki as well yes because nagasaki is geographically close to china yeah has that sort of chinese influence in the cuisine only criticism not enough pork oh actually there's a store over there where you can get extra meat filling if you want what should we go get another one let's go do that [Music] and our healthy afternoon lunch isn't over yet as we head to the absurdly picturesque maganebashi bridge for another unique local dish ice cream [ __ ] like a flower chili yeah it's named after the little bells that they used to ring when they would walk around the town yeah how romantic just ice cream looks like a flower nice thing low calorie though it's only 60 calories we could get two yeah we're standing in front of megane bashi this is literally glasses bridge because apparently it reflects into the river and looks like glasses but not today because it just looks like a bridge but it's the oldest stone bridge nagasaki dating back to i think 1634. this whole stretch of river is absolutely beautiful we've had joey the enemy man walk across numerous bridges as our model for the last half an hour bridge model now officially bridge model a bridge model sounds better than youtuber what do you do young man i'm a bridge model what do you know i mean i knew nagasaki was a beautiful city but i didn't know it was this good that feels like a hayao miyazaki film it's very i say that a lot all right anything picturesque is a hyaluronu is it bad that i want to splash about in the river it is look at that water that is not river water is that an invite for me to push you in that is not an invite for anything like after that after i push that skin to the waterfall i don't trust anyone by waterfall especially myself no look at the water look at this this is like the maldives there's so many fish and turtles splashing around in the river like a lot of rivers in cities in japan aren't overly clean and certainly the ones in like tokyo around shibuya smell pretty pretty bad and you want to avoid them like here it's like a fresh water spring what's going on here where's it going it's magic anime magic anime animation with joey and i stuffed full of pork and ice cream anatsky's satisfied with his sneaky afternoon shopping trip before heading to battleship island we all meet downtown at 100 yen store to desperately acquire some props for our dr jelly commercial so we're going to look for a a tub dr hair jelly and i think i found one oh my god screw top container 900 so you're just going to take the sticker off it's going to take the sticker off put a dr jelly like picture or a logo or something on it there you go and they fill this up with hair gel nice cord i need it props in hand after a brief search for a film location we stumble across a rather unconventional solution this is an atrocity we've had to make our own hair gel for this uh because in the last two dr jelly commercials we've had products to work with right we had natsuki's hand gel and we had the energy drilling this time joey's had to make the hair gel from scratch so we bought some real hair gel and now he's going to decant it into this pot we've photoshopped this quickly chris photoshopped this in about five minutes and then printed off at a 7-eleven and now we're in a karaoke booth where we're going to record the ad yeah where else is open i'm in a karaoke booth about to spoon some hair gel into decanter with my face on this is the weirdest footage this is this is a low point for the jerry the anime man dynasty i was eight years on youtube for this we were desperate we didn't know where to film this because we can't just walk into a barbers and be like sorry can we take over your barber shop in nagasaki for an hour so if we we found this karaoke booth that's quite big and it's got mirrors and we've got oh that's messed up it looks a lot like the energy jelly from dr jelly one [Music] stupid [ __ ] voice [Music] ah how am i not gonna so we just finished filming the dr jelly commercial a career ending scene has just been filmed yeah shot your hair looks horrible oh my god i mean it looks great did you have fun natsuki filming dr jelly yeah fun time and first time it was his first time and last time in a doctor his dream just came true yeah yeah not many people get to to be in a dr jelly commercial anyway i'm gonna go and wash my hair and then let's go to gunkanjima let's go having thoroughly sterilized my hair we head to nagasaki port to hop on a boat for our 40-minute journey across the sea to visit what might be nagasaki's most famous location an entire ghost city on an abandoned island 20 kilometers out to sea over the last few days we've seen some pretty jaw-dropping locations on our journey across kyushu but we've saved perhaps the most visually striking destination until last gunkanjima aka battleship island once the most densely populated island on earth now a crumbling concrete ruin [Music] what an incredible island i've been wanting to see this place with my own eyes for years now and it was pretty surreal to finally see it the ultimate place to play hide and seek think about it'd be a lot of fun wouldn't it the island's official name is actually hashima island in 1890 mitsubishi motors snapped up the land after discovering deposits of coal to protect the island from typhoons and rough seas they built a giant rectangular sea wall around the coastline giving the appearance of a giant floating battleship hard to believe that people lived here like a lot of people lived here do you live on the island for how much 35 pounds some of japan's first large-scale concrete buildings were constructed on the island to house the army of workers who toiled in the coal mines and by 1959 with 5200 people living on the 480 meter long and 150 meter wide island gunkanjima was one of the most densely populated places on earth but just like the island of ikeshima that we explored in the previous episode once japan's coal industry faltered so did the economic prospects of the island and when mitsubishi shut down the mine in 1974 the 5 000 workers went with it leaving behind an eerie decayed urban wasteland out to sea for over three decades gunkinjima was isolated from the outside world but in 2009 the local government began allowing visitors to land on the island and explore the surroundings through a handful of tour companies oh we are just alive in gunkanjima looks like same army ships but i think broken dreams broken dreams broken dreams natsuki's always so poetic what do you think jerry it's pretty gnarly orchy gnarly gnarly gnarly it's pretty cool though the key word here is gnarly recent appearances and films have helped catapult the island to fame perhaps most notably in the james bond movie skyfall where the island served as inspiration for javier bardem's house apparently according to joey part of the live-action film attack on titan was filmed over the apartment blocks and i do recognize it from the film terrible film by the way don't watch it maybe many money many money any money money smell i don't think so yeah so this area was the uh more residential side of things so people used to live in these buildings right here that's literally right next to the coal mine really just goes to show you how small this island was i have to say out of gunkanjima and ikishima i think i prefer takashima just because you can kind of go off and explore more freely whereas here you have to come on a tour but still an incredible island highly recommend it if you are coming to nagasaki put it on your list gazing over a dense concrete jungle frozen in time on a boat from out to sea isn't a sight that i'll forget in a hurry and it absolutely ranks as one of the most incredible locations i've ever witnessed in all my time in japan even if i was disappointed by the absence of javier bardem where is he why was he there back to army ship island back to the army ship island back to the army ship island go quick scott [Music] nagasaki is home to what's considered to be one of japan's top three night viewing spots a 333 meter high peak overlooking the nagasaki bay area it's here while looking out across the stunning view that we encounter what might be the best burger that i've ever had in japan and it happens to be in a shipping container my favorite so we're at nagasaki observatory on the summit of a mountain overlooking the city incredible views and there's a burger restaurant and joey's just spotted a triple cheeseburger it looks like a heart attack we're waiting to happen and now they're both going to go head to head natsuki and joey to see who can eat it in the shortest amount of time i'm going to win i'll win so i've got joey and natsuki's burger look at that that is like the weight of a small child what are they gonna this is gonna be insane i'm glad i'm not doing it for the record here you go good luck that ski good luck oh that actually looks really good [ __ ] hell never been sized that is like that's bigger than my fist i'm gonna time it let's see eating yeah how the [ __ ] i don't know but here we go i'm gonna do a timer you ready the first one to finish the burger wins my friendship forever start [Music] oh we're now one minute in to the race and i say joey's ahead slightly but look at that mouthful natsuki just too fair natsuki beat me at the monster almond challenge and joey beat me at the monster ramen challenge so it'd be interesting to see who wins this they're both pretty good at food fighting i just got a normal sized burger i'm taking my time it's very good well jeffy joey's literally lifting the burger the last remnants of wagyu beef this is a wagyu beef burger by the way it's the best beef and that's it mmm two minutes 45 seconds joey wins eating the triple cheeseburger oh natsuki's the laser well done joey you won nothing that was not worth it my jaw actually hurts well what a day it's been battleship island dr jelly yeah good jelly good jelly good chili good jelly i'm not so sure about that here is guys dr jelly part three dr hair jelly take it away amazing [Music] kyono meeting [Music] foreign [Music] foreign hey [Music] oh [Music] foreign thank you so much guys for joining us this time on journey across japan a thousand kilometers across kyushu what a week this was easily the most intense journey across japan we've done so much stuff i mean what was your highlight what was your highlights guys natsuki yeah waterfall the waterfall the one you fell into how did you fall in that's i have a pirate's pants one day rust oh yeah he lost the pirate pants [Music] what about you what was your say my favorite memory was the horses the horse riding yeah really no no it wasn't it was the cessna the single engine but for now guys thanks for watching abroad japan we hope to see you right back here next time to do it all over again but for now as this is essentially natsuki's holiday i think he should end it playing the journey across japan theme tune are you ready natsuki thank you jenny across japan have a good holiday [Music] so much volcano come on no volcano come on

Channel: Abroad in Japan

Views: 1,496,608

Keywords: gunkanjima, hashima island, battleship island, nagasaki, abroad in japan, journey across japan, trash taste, the anime man, abroad in japan natsuki

Id: ht5e-IMYhlU

Length: 21min 54sec (1314 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 20 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/ricardo_lacombe]

I could watch Dr Jelly ads all day

[u/Wetkittennoses]

I really enjoyed the video and the series.

To me it often feels like episodes could have been longer and less edited, like it jumps to the next place quite quickly. Is Patreon good for seeing extra footage? I've never joined/subscribed to one before but I'm tempted.

[u/NeoClemerek]

By the way, how long has the subreddit bot been dead? Nobody going to fix it?

[u/SmokeyFan777]

Nagasaki is beautiful

[u/lucashoodfromthehood]

What a legacy that original commercial challenge has now. Love how the production of the ads keep increasing for each one. And I want to see a lot more of Nagasaki. It's beautiful.

[u/Gridoverflow]

I am somewhat disappointed that he didn't mention the fact that many of the workers living on battleship island weren't there by choice. A considerable amount was forced laborers from China and Korea before and during the 2nd World War. I don't think he hid it by choice though, since it seems that they are actually actively avoiding mentioning anything related to forced labor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashima_Island. Unfortunately Japan is trying to hide these facts, even 75 years after the fact.

[u/Toffeenutlatte912]

What an awesome finale! The production quality just gets better with each season. 👏🏻 & the Dr Jelly ad was just the best way to end it..me fav bit has got to be Norm in curlers..🤣

[u/heero101086]

For next Journey Across Japan, Dr. KY Jelly!

I’ll let you guys imagine the kind of ad Chris makes with that jelly.

[u/Dangerous-Grab7225]

Does anyone know the orchestral music that was playing during the Dr Jelly commercial?