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Leave your preconceptions at the door, for Nagasaki is no longer taboo. The sparkling lights of the villas stretching up the slopes to the summits of the mountains around the harbour at night attest to a romantic city vibrant with history. Lifeblood of Nagasaki is the Nakajima river, spanned by ludicrously lovely and sombre grey stone bridges. The oldest Chinese temple in Japan is also here, cult of the Obaku sect. A taste of Europe is present at “Hollander slope”, prime site of former Christian culture which entered Japan during times of prosperous trade with Portugal in the Middle Ages, so named because all Europeans were once considered to be Dutch. Christianity was banned in Japan in the sixteenth century, although descendents of Japanese Christians kept the faith going undetected for 300 years in the district of Urakami, a feat popularly considered miraculous.
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