I had intended on ticking off this site by visiting Hashima Island, as it seemed by far the most unique and interesting component. However, I discovered about a month before my planned trip to Japan that all boats out there were fully booked for months in advance, covering the time I would be there.

This caused me to abandon the plan to visit Nagasaki, and instead focus elsewhere. Thankfully, one element of the site was still easily visitable from Tokyo, the Nirayama Reverbatory Furnace.

Without looking into it too much, beyond directions as to how to visit, I assumed the furnace visit itself would involve a lonely walk from the train station to an out of the way lot where a confused ticket attendant would probably be waiting. Instead, Japanese enthusiasm for World Heritage shone resolutely through.

The train car from Mishima station was plastered in a photo of the furnace, largely proclaiming its World Heritage status. The arrival station had directions to the furnace mapped into the footpath all the way to the site itself. When I arrived, I was baffled to see almost a dozen tour buses in the parking lot next door. Over a hundred elderly Japanese men and women were taking turns taking group photos in front of the furnace, and they seemed as confused about my presence as I was about theirs.

The adjacent gift shop was larger than the actual site itself, and was dominated by an anthropomorphic anime furnace samurai, a figure plastered across all of the souvenirs. At a normal site, this level of crowding and commercialisation would likely be offputting, but here it was almost wondrous. A site I had built up in my head to be some dingy brick pile in the middle of nowhere that I was venturing off to was instead a huge tourist attraction for some reason.

As such I really enjoyed it, even if the site itself can be visited in about 2 minutes and is not at all visually impressive.