Nagasaki Was Sunny Today Too
There is an old song called "Nagasaki Was Rainy Today Too." Even as a child, I vaguely knew of the song's existence. I had misremembered "today too" as "always," and was convinced that Nagasaki was a city with a lot of rain. However, it has been sunny for the past few days. It is a clear, mild Indian summer day. Since I have no plans until tonight, I had time to kill during the day.
There is a cafe I want to visit near Urakami Cathedral, so I drove there.
On the way back, I stopped by Urakami Cathedral for a quick look. I took off my hat, calmed my mind, and went inside; I was the only visitor. There was one staff member at the entrance.
Just the two of us in that large space. Since it was Saturday, I was a bit taken aback.
The room was filled with a "hushed" silence. The first thing that caught my eye was the stained glass behind the staff member. The colorful light streaming through it illuminated the rows of dark brown pews. I thought, "Oh, that's beautiful." Then, I shifted my gaze to the altar in the back. The light coming through the stained glass was shining on the sculpture of Christ and the cross sitting in the center. I was struck.
For the past few years, I have been interested in the history of Nagasaki and Christianity, and I have visited churches many times. But I hadn't been that interested in church architecture itself. I'm not really a fan of Gothic visuals.
But that scene was beautiful. I stared at it for a while, but then other visitors came in, so I went outside.
There, I asked an AI to recommend other churches with beautiful stained glass. I decided to visit two churches I hadn't been to yet.
The first was "Kaminoshima Church." It was a small, white-walled church built on a small hill on a cape outside Nagasaki Port. There was no one here either.
It had lovely stained glass based on colorful circles. Because of the time of day, there was no direct sunlight here. Soft, indirect light entered the room through the stained glass, creating a gentle atmosphere. Wanting to calm my mind a little, I sat in the back pew and spent about 15 minutes there.
When I went outside and looked at the sea, a cat approached me. It was a brown-patched cat that was very used to people. It rubbed against my legs, but when it realized I didn't have any food, it immediately lost interest and went somewhere else. Feeling a bit lonely, I looked up and saw several kites riding the wind leisurely above the church. When I glanced to the side, one had descended to my eye level. We locked eyes for a moment, but it immediately flew back up into the sky.
What is this place!?
Being entertained by the cat and the kites made me feel very peaceful.
I paid 100 yen, crossed the Megami Bridge while looking down at Nagasaki Port, and headed to the next church.
Nakamachi Church, located right near Nagasaki Station.
This church is quite large, though not as large as Urakami Cathedral. There was no one in the white-walled interior. The stained glass had a floral (or cross?) pattern combining five circles. It had the fewest colors of the ones I visited today. It had a clean atmosphere with a lot of blue and green. There were quite a lot of windows, so the room was very bright. The light through the stained glass created many pools of light in the room. I sat in one of them and bathed in the blue light for a while. As the sun moved, it changed to green halfway through. I felt a little purified and felt lighter. When I turned around to leave, colorful petals of light were quietly falling on the heavy, large brown door.
I was struck again.
It is written that photography is generally prohibited inside the church. At that moment, I broadly interpreted the meaning of "generally" and took just one photo of that door. After taking it, I put my hands together toward the altar in the back and apologized.
As I left the church and was crossing the intersection in front of the station to go to a cafe, a ship's whistle blared. My tear ducts felt like they were about to give way.
