Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution

Shortly before I left for my trip to Japan in September 2019, I realized that it would be possible to tick off one of the 23 locations of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution WHS. Most of these sites are located on Kyūshū or West Honshū, far away from my itinerary. Only one location is in Central Honshū, about 100 km southwest of Tokyo: the Nirayama Reverbatory Furnaces.

Niramaya is almost directly on the Tokaido Shinkansen line (connecting Tokyo and Kyoto/Osaka). In Mishima you have to change to a private railway line for the last short section to Izu-Nagaoka station, and then it's a 20-minute walk to the site (through rice fields, of course, we are in Japan). In total, it took me less than two hours to get there from Tokyo.
Having said that, I have to admit that getting there takes longer than visiting. What you can see are four furnaces with four steel-framed brick chimneys. The furnaces are the remains of a cannon factory, and reproductions of such cannons are also on display. Although the furnace was only in operation for seven years, between 1857 and 1864, the site is of historical importance as it represents the beginning of modern iron manufacturing in Japan.
There are information boards in English, but also volunteer guides who are happy to explain the principle of a reverberatory furnace and other details. My guide was a charming elderly lady who spoke English very well. And she had a profound knowledge of …

The previous reviews have already covered the sites that I have visited, so I am not going to repeat what was already mentioned. But I'd like to add to the reviews by sharing how my day went when I visited the Glover House and Kosuge Slip Dock in July 2019.

My friend and I decided to do a day-trip to Nagasaki from Fukuoka on a Monday. We aimed to visit the Glover House and the area around the Peace Park, and nothing else. We sort of started the day out late, leaving Hakata Bus Station at 8am and arriving in Nagasaki around 2.5 hours after. After a late breakfast at a tiny café near the bus station, we headed straight to the Glover Garden. The ticket counter staff told us that entry to the Glover House was not possible as it is under renovation, which started in January 2019 and is expected to finish by November 2020. 

We started the visit on the top of the hill with the former Mitsubishi Number 2 Dock House, which has a decent informative museum showcasing the different properties inscribed under this WHS. We then continued down the hill to see the other houses/buildings, like the cute Former Walker House, Former Ringer House (probably my favourite) and the Steele Memorial Academy. Going around the area I felt like I was visiting a theme park. We then arrived at the Glover House, which was fully covered with construction tarpaulin and heaps of metal …

"I'm getting too old for this s**t", Danny Glover said when arriving at the Glover Garden. And I thought the same having to suddenly ascend from the tram station on the Glover Skywalk to reach the entrance of the garden. The main reason I walked quickly was because it was already 5pm, the church and garden close at 6 and you never know about the last admission times for these places. So I quickly looked at the Oura church. It is Japan's oldest church and part of the Hidden Christian WHS, one of those few places where you have two separate inscriptions 100m apart from each other and yes, you can see the church from the gardens for those interested in trivia. As it is more of a museum regarding Christianity in Japan I quickly moved on the still reach the Glover Garden in time. Luckily this was the last day it was open until 9:30pm! So the summer times are maybe very different, especially because of a harvest celebrations (Nagasaki Kunchi) still ongoing. Many students were in the park and staying late is actually better to see the town/port from the viewpoint and the illumination of the gardens. All the houses are open, with the Glover House being the best place to see old furniture and some facts about his time in Japan. I didn't know that he was the inspiration for the Kirin beer logo, or so they say. For Westerners they have seen many houses better than …

I can only speak for the sites in and around Nagasaki, but what I saw was fascinating.

On a sunny December day, I started with a tour of Glover Garden, which offers great views over Nagasaki and has some historic buildings from the early Meiji period, including the listed Glover House and Office.

The highlight of my visit was definitely the boat tour to Hashima Island (Gunkanjima), a truly weird place, different from anything else I have seen so far. I chose Gunkanjima Cruise for the tour and was satisfied with them. Their ferry “Black Diamond” departs from Motohuna pier, located between Nagasaki station and the Youme Town Yumesaito shopping mall. The boat ride offers some nice views of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyard, crane and dry dock on the Western side of Nagasaki port and the Kosuge Slip Dock on the Eastern side (all part of the WHS). Thanks to calm waters that day, mooring of the boat at Hashima Island was allowed, and although it was prohibited to walk around freely, it was still possible to gain an impression of the site and take some great photos from the southern part of the island. On the way back, the ferry stopped at Takashima Island for half an hour, just enough time for a short stroll.

Further recommended sights in Nagasaki: Atomic Bomb Museum, Peace Park, Fukusai-ji, Ōura Church (part of the WHS “Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region”).

Overall a great experience!

In June 2017 I visited Nagasaki, where I stayed at Hotel Monterey Nagasaki, which is located a very short walk from the departure point for the Gunkanjima Concierge Company (https://www.gunkanjima-concierge.com/en/). I joined one of their tours to visit Hashima Island, commonly called Gunkanjima (or Battleship Island), an abandoned island lying 15 kilometers from Nagasaki. Its nickname comes from the resemblance of its profile to a Japanese battleship. The island was known for its seabed coal deposits, which were mined, sometimes by forced labor during World War II, from 1887 until 1974, when the mine was closed, leaving the island abandoned. The island was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites in 2015 as one of the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution, and has only been open to tourists since 2009. Battleship Island served as the villain's lair in the James Bond film Skyfall.

Most of the serial World Heritage Sites include what I would characterize as "strong" and "weak" components, and I typically don't tick a site unless I have visited a strong component. Battleship Island, in my view, is the strongest component in the Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution. (On my same trip to Japan, I visited the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, one of the Architectural Works of Le Corbusier that's been inscribed on the list of WHS, but to me it was too uninteresting to justify a tick of that site, which I will only tick after I visit Notre Dame …

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 …

There are so many sites in this category but the most iconic (besides the politics) is Hashima Island. Cranes, dry docks, and even Glover House is historical but nothing compares to Battleship Island. It's a small island about one hour boat ride out of Nagasaki. The island had over 5000 inhabitants who dug coal deep into the undersea. It was a self sustaining island with hospitals, theatre, markets etc

Since it was abandoned decades ago, the typhoons have devastated the buildings and today it looks really scary like a crumbling deserted ghost town on an island with fortress like sea walls. A Chernobyl but vastly poorer condition.

There are several boats that take tourist to visit the island and these boats take their turn landing. You get 45 mins on land and there are developed walking areas to only a small portion of the island. Book early as this has become very popular with locals since WHS. I tried 6 months early and nearly did not get on. There are several on line sites to book. The tours are all in Japanese and so I hired a guide to translate for me.

Also try to go in spring or fall when the weather is good. I was told that in August, only half the trips could land due to high swells. If they do not land then they refund you 300 yen of the fare. Even on a good day several passengers were sick.

The site has the irony of …

From sites and components that become the third industrial site which Japan nominated to become a World Heritage Site, I was fortunate to see at least 9 sites during my short visit to Kyushu especially in Kagoshima and Nagasaki. The city of Kagoshima welcomed me with the eruption of Sakurajima, its iconic volcano that erupts at least five times daily. One of the most significant tourist attractions of this Naples of Japan is the former residence of Shimazu feudal lord, the Sangen-en Garden. The residence and garden are really lovely with beautiful landscape design. Part of the Sengan-en, actually located directly at the main entrance, is the former site of Shuseikan which is considered the first industrial complex in Japan. There are 3 sites that still visible. The 1851 Reverberatory Furnace, to be true the site is really underwhelming, only the stone foundations have been preserved. Luckily that there is a smaller replica model nearby to show what it was in the old time. Then I saw 1865 Former Machinery Factory, this stone house which maybe the first western styled building designed by Japanese. Inside the building is the museum about Kagoshima and Shimazu clan’s part on country development and international trade and the old machine still on display. Another site is 1867 Engineer’s Residence; this one is the lovely western styled mansion with oriental touch on the roof.

I continued my travel to Nagasaki, at this city, the 1863 Glover House and Office was …

Hagi housed the feudal lords of the Kyushu-Yamaguchi region, ending with Lord Takachika Mori (1819-71) who is associated with the proto-industrial trials around Hagi. The site includes the ruins of Hagi castle and many original buildings and streets in the well-preserved town, which has avoided the natural disasters that Japan is so prone to.

I visited Hagi on my first trip to Japan, in the year 2000. I did so on a day trip from Hiroshima. Hagi was (and probably still is) way off the beaten track. It is situated on the northern coast of Honshu Island, and it took me 2 hours on a bus and a train to get there. The ticket seller even had to ask twice if I really wanted to go there. "Hagi in Yamaguchi district you mean?"

The charm of old Hagi proved to be easy to find. Most of its historical buildings lie in the old samurai neighbourhoods. Long, whitewashed walls that line the streets are characteristic of this area. Some of the old houses are still lived in, others are museums. I started at the spacious house of the Kikuya family of Merchants.

Not far from there lies the cute little temple Ensei-ji. It is a combination of a Shinto shrine and a Buddhist temple. Besides the usual colourful ticket and a brochure in English, they also provided me with a poster of Hagi. And there were more gifts to come: at the little restaurant where I ate my …