Nagasaki, the Bridge to the West

While many people only know one thing about Nagasaki, there's much more to the city than just that.  Historically, Nagasaki was the only port where non-Chinese ships were allowed to trade with Japan, and even then it was largely the Dutch coming to port for most of history.  There was a small artificial island (though hard to distinguish from the mainland) called Dejima to house these sailors.

Chinese and Dutch influence are pretty clear as day in Nagasaki, even more than the Chinese influence in Kobe.  One area is called Shianbashi, which is located near the Chinatown, and is one of the more Chinese-sounding areas I've heard in Japan, and the signature dish - Nagasaki Chanpon - has routes in its name and creation from China.  There are cafes and streets with strong Dutch influence, with a cake called castella and other cuisines stemming from Europe.  The toruko rice dish, named after Turkey the country, represents how the nation of Turkey is a bridge between the east and west, as Nagasaki once was.  It's a chicken cutlet over rice on one side, and pasta on the other, covered in curry.

Unlike Hiroshima, most of downtown Nagasaki was spared by the atomic bomb, having been dropped a little offcenter and protected by the mountains.  Still, the northern part of the city has many monuments to strive for peace and shows the location where the bomb went off.  It almost feels like tragic irony, where the bridge between the east and west was mostly destroyed by the west.