Trip to Sotome

The week after the Peace Park field trip, several students went on a trip to Sotome to visit some old churches and museums. Sotome, where one of my professors lives, is a small mountain town a bit outside Nagasaki city.


A farmer kept a few goats in a small cliffside farm. We got to stop and say hello

Our first stop after that was the Ono Church. It's a very old church, mostly a historical relic now. It only has services once a year.

This wall, built from mud and stone by Fr. De Rotz, is famous because of a terrible pun in Japanese. It's the "doro-kabe"

We went to the Sotome Museum of History and Folklore next, showcasing the town's agricultural and religious history.

The sister-city agreement between Sotome and Vaux-sur-Aure

 The second floor holds many Christian relics. Sotome is one of the most heavily Catholic parts of Japan.

A garbage disposal from the prehistoric Jomon era.

Jomon stone tools

The next stop was the Shitsu church. Photography wasn't allowed inside, unfortunately. I did get some excellent pictures from outside though

We then went to the Shusaku Endo literature museum, which was near an excellent lookout spot.

The view from the lookout spot

The sea of Japan

Our university is past the second set of moutains

After that we made one more unscheduled stop on the way back, since we had extra time. We visited another historic church in the area.

This one allowed photography

Sotome is kind of in the middle of nowhere. More and more people are moving into the city, and it's becoming a bit of a ghost town, but the views are amazing.