The Megane-bashi — the Spectacles Bridge, named for the double arch reflected in the water — was built in 1634 by Chinese monks. The flea market that runs along the Nakashima River nearby deals in the accumulated past of a city that has always been a meeting point: Chinese porcelain, Dutch-influenced copperware, Japanese woodblock prints, the particular mixture of Nagasaki's centuries. Nagasaki had the only port legally open to foreign trade during Japan's period of isolation — first to the Dutch, then increasingly to others. This singular position shaped everything about the city: its food, its architecture, its festivals, and the things that have accumulated in its attics over four hundred years and now appear, periodically, at the riverside flea market. The market is small and irregular. What makes it worth finding is not the size but the specificity of what it contains. Old things in a city that knows exactly how old it is, and what that age means. Browsing here is a way of touching Nagasaki's history that the museum cannot quite provide.