Another rail day. And another break in the weather, which had until today been quite balmy... We have bad rail luck, it seems.

It wasn't too bad, and was even quite sunny to start with, but by the time we reached Mojiko, the temperature had dropped quite a bit, and there was a sneaky cool wind.

Our first destination was Kokura, which is part of the conurbation now known as Kitakyushu.

We travelled on the Sonic again. Love these trains... The way they glide and tilt is really the ultimate in smooth train experiences...



Our interest in Kokura/Kitakyushu lay in the monorail and in the Memorial Museum of Seichi Matsumoto. So we hadn't at all realized how Kokura fitted into the nuclear tragedy linking Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It's a very sobering story of the twists and turns of fate...

In the final year of World War II, the US had been drawing up a shortlist of eligible targets for the world's first nuclear weapons. They eventually came up with Kyoto, Hiroshima, Kokura, and Niigata. By the end of May 1945, Hiroshima and Kyoto had emerged as the two drop-zones of choice.

Nagasaki housed important military sites, and appeared on an earlier list of potential targets, only to be removed again. But when the decision was made to remove Kyoto from the list (allegedly on cultural grounds), Nagasaki moved up into the danger zone, albeit in fourth position.

Hiroshima was attacked on 6 August 1945. With the weather showing signs of closing in, the next onslaught was brought forward to 9 August, and Kokura was now the city in the crosshairs. But visibility was very poor that day. So the plane bearing the next nuclear bomb circled three times, and flew on. To Nagasaki... Where, at 11.02, the world's second nuclear attack took place, killing about 70,000 on the spot, and thousands more as radiation sickness set in.

Kokura was in fact triply lucky. Because the US banned conventional attacks on the cities it proposed as potential targets for atomic attacks (all the better to measure the degree of destruction afterwards...), Kokura also dodged common-or-garden air raids over the summer of 1945. And Kokura was the backup target on 6 August, if Hiroshima had been obscured by cloud. But it wasn't, of course... (For a more detailed discussion of the "luck of Kokura", see here.)

But we were there for other reasons. I've mentioned already how Japanese author Seicho Matsumoto (1909-92) -- three of whose novels I have now read -- was actually the inspiration for this whole Kyushu trip. He spent the first half of his life in Kokura/Kitakyushu -- hence the extensive museum, located right next to Kokura Castle.

This is it:



Matsumoto was one of Japan's most famous writers, even though he didn't start that segment of his career until he was 42. Overseas he's known for his crime fiction, but he also wrote historical novels, non-fiction on topics of contemporary and ancient history, and biographical and autobiographical works. Many of his pieces were adapted for film.

The museum's most striking section is its recreation of Matsumoto's Tokyo residence, his "castle of speculation and creation". Decked out with all the items he routinely used are a parlour (very leathery), a study (suitably chaotic), and a labyrinthine two-storey library (utterly wonderful).


After all that, you can have coffee and cake in the garden:



And then you can attempt to stroll it off in the very pleasant castle area:






Less than 20 minutes away by local train is Mojiko, one of Japan's earliest international trade ports.

Kyushu's first railway was built here, in 1891, and the station dates back to 1914:



Right by the station is the Kyushu Railway History Museum, which is full of nostalgia. There is an outside area, displaying trains of various eras:





And there's a substantial inside area, with all manner of mementoes on display:





What really stands out here is Japan's love affair with trains. They are far, far more than just mechanical things to get us from A to B. They are like part of the family.

Testifying to this attitude are the number of pictures of trains looking magnificent in scenically beautiful situations, or the lovely little exhibit on station box-lunches:



The port area is also quite scenic:



We could have done with more time, really. It turned out there was more on offer in these two places than we could fit into a short winter's day. Maybe there'll be a next time...