Glover Garden in Nagasaki, Japan is Alive with the Sound of Music

Chalk this place up as one of the reasons why Nagasaki, for me, is one of the oddest cities we’ve ever been to in Japan. By odd, I mean it’s the most un-Japanese city we’ve visited so far. For many Westerners, that might actually make it the most “normal”. ?

I’ve come to love the oddities that make Japan what it is, but you won’t find any of that here. There are no giant robots or mechanical crabs. Instead, you’ll find Catholic churches and Western-style buildings, many of which are the oldest in the country. They can be traced back to Nagasaki’s prominence as a port city throughout much of its history. It was a center of Portuguese and Dutch influence from the 16th to the 19th centuries during which it was the only port in Japan open to foreign trade. When Japan reopened its doors to diplomatic relations during the Meiji period, Nagasaki was declared a free port which then created a flourishing community of British, Dutch, American, and Russian…