Glover Garden

.
When the period of national seclusion was ended in 1854 after more than 200 years a couple of entrepeneurial English came to Nagasaki and tried to start up business here. One of the most successful ones was Thomas Glover. He lived on a slope overlooking Nagasaki harbour and now this site where former foreigners used to live is now a major tourist attraction. Wonderful houses with wrap around porches, an abundance of roses and sweeping views. Went there on thursday with Saul and with three million Japanese. Jam-packed is the word here. This also the place where Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madama Butterfly" is located and there is even a statue of one of the most famous Japanese sopranos, Tamaki Miura, of course in the part of Butterfly.

The curious thing about Glover is that he sided with the insurgents who wanted the emperor back as Head of State and get rid of the Shogun. I think he had a good feeling about where history would lead and after the fall of the Shogun in 1889, known here as the Bakumatsu, and the beginning of the Meiji era, he had a good amount of friends in the government to safeguard his business interests.