We met up in the lobby at 0700 and the whimper I whimpered when I put on my shoes told everyone that they had not dried since yesterday, and not only that - they were also cold. We were picked up by the bus and went to the station where we got breakfast before boarding the train to Nagoya (the 7/11s here are much more extensive than any you’d see at home – so it’s not just candy and fast food but you can get decent food). The views along the way were beautiful alpine environments with all the fresh snow. After 2½ hours we had left the alpine area, descended to warmer climate and arrived at Nagoya. Here we had time to get lunch before boarding the shinkansen to Kobe where we did a same-platform change and got onto another shinkansen that took us all the way to Hiroshima, where we arrived around 1400.
There was a few minutes’ walk to the hotel were we left our bags before grabbing a bus downtown and getting off at the Hiroshima Peace Park. Here we saw various memorials; the children’s statue, the eternal flame and a plaque (very unceremoniously placed onto a random building) denoting the epicenter of the detonation of the nuke. 150 meters from there was the Atomic Bomb Dome – the remains of the only building left still standing after the attack. It originally was the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall and the reason it remained standing (at least parts of it), was that opposed to the surrounding buildings it was not made from wood and had large windows which let the pressure pass through more easily. This does not negate the large necessity of having it reinforced with numerous rods and poles to keep it safely standing. A permanent reminder of the horrors.
And if the image of the bombed building wasn’t enough we followed it up by visiting the Hiroshima Peace Museum, describing and showing everything in details about the bombing; before, during and after. The visit was just as fun as you would expect. It is rare to experience such silence in a large busy museum.
From there we went out to have dinner; the
entire group got invited to a place that made Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki.
Everywhere in Japan you mostly eat the Osaka style – a thick pancake with all
the toppings mixed into the cabbage-batter, maybe topped with scallions etc.
The Hiroshima-style is more of a large thin pancake (like a crepe) with
cabbage, bean sprouts and toppings piled on, a pile of noodles fried to the
same size and shape of the pancake on top, and then a egg is splattered out on
the heat plate to the size of the pancake and the entire concoction flipped
over onto the egg. A much different style but absolutely fantastic.
The following day we left the hotel in the morning and boarded the train for a half an hour drive to Miyajimaguchi where we got the ferry to Itsukushima (also known as Miyajima) Island. The island is home to multiple temples, torii-gates, a forest and numerous deer just walking around like they own the place. We had a bit of a walk around being introduced to the area before getting let loose. In the beginning there was focus on getting photos of the Great Torii Gate out in the water (which also makes it the main eye catcher in advertisement and tourism material). A couple of us decided to walk to the tallest point on the island; Misen summit at 531m, where we would be able to get a nice view of the island and surrounding areas. The walk up through the forest was quite nice – the views you got through the foliage were beautiful and it never got crowded enough that it distracted from the experience. The path and steps were quite steep so when we finally made it to the top 1½ hours after starting it felt like we had gotten a pretty decent workout. With both a cable car and two other paths to the top there were more people here than we had seen on the way up, but it never got too crowded here, either, to not being able to enjoy the views and take photos. Despite haze in the distance it was possible to see Hiroshima and the many oyster farms spread out in the surrounding waters. Oysters are a big thing and a specialty for the area, but my experience with the deep fried oysters was a thick crunchy batter with a hot and tasteless center.
Walking back down we arrived at sea level a bit past 1600 and it had become low tide. To all our surprise it turned out that the low tide exposed the base of the Great Torii Gate so it was now possible to walk out to and around it. Apparently the water isn’t deeper than maybe a meter around it at high tides, which isn’t obvious when you just look at it. From there the others looked for a place for coffee and snacks, whereas I returned to the ferry, not missing the opportunity to get some shots of soaring kites along the way, jumped onto the train back on the main land back to Hiroshima and met up with others from the group at a sushi restaurant with sushi that was absolutely delicious.
On the way back to the hotel from the
restaurant some of us went for desserts and the group’s macha-latte addict
grabbed her 4th and 5th of the day after contemplating if
the 3 she had already had during the day were enough. Obviously they weren’t.
Back at the hotel I started packing an getting ready for tomorrow’s relocation. After the cold, wet and snowy weather of Takayama the blue sky and 15-17 degrees of Hiroshima felt like a completely different world. And my feet were even dry!
No comments:
Post a Comment