Today, man. Seriously, today. MAN!
This was the day. It's been such an amazing and unexpected day - I don't want to put a dampner on what's to come, but I think today will be the best day of the entire trip. And I'm saying that even though I pulled a muscle in my hip and now I'm walking with a jolly little limp. It's just been that good.
To tell you the truth, I was a little worried about my journey today. I didn't have a ticket reserved on the train, and although I knew there are unreserved seats on every train, I didn't know if there would be any available when I got on at Kyoto. Then I noticed there wasn't a through train, and I'd have to change at Shin-Osaka. Finally, I knew I had some possibly complicated changes in Hiroshima, what with wanting to get on the tour bus at the station, then needing to get out to Miyajima-guchi station, find the ferry, board the ferry, and find the hotel on the other side. And so, with over an hour to wait for the train I wanted to catch, I checked out of my Kyoto hotel and wandered to the station, wanting plenty of time in case things went pear shaped.
The journey could not really have gone any more smoothly. The train started at Kyoto, so seats were not a problem. The change at Shin-Osaka was easy. Hiroshima station is very clearly signposted, like all stations I've been to so far, so I had no trouble finding the coin lockers to leave my suitcase while I headed off for the tour bus.
It was while I was putting my case into one of the lockers that I managed to pull the muscle in my hip (it feels like the right place for the transversus abdominis, for anyone in the know). Bit of a bugger, but it's not too bad, as long as I take stairs slowly.
Finally, suitcase free and still able to move around, I headed out into Hiroshima.
The Dome was very sombre. They're currently doing some structural work to make sure it can withstand earthquakes, so there was a bit of activity inside, but it still had a quiet, medatitive feel to it. A fair few people were sitting on the benches surrounding and just staring.
So, quick summary. When the bomb was dropped, it was detonated about 600m almost directly above the Dome, which is why so much of it is still intact. The museum, which I visited afterwards, had this display showing the city immediately after the bombing.
I don't know if you can see from the photo, but everything except the lumps in the centre was completely flattened.
The museum had me in tears. There were some pretty gruesome images and reconstructions, but the worst things were the incidental things. There was a section taken from the steps of a bank, showing a dark 'shadow' where someone had been sitting when the bomb went off. The heat and radiation made the stone around it much paler, but where the person was shielding it, it remained the same colour. There were lots of displays of clothes belonging to people who had been caught in the blast. Most of them were school uniforms, or objects belonging to school children - many of the higher years had been drafted to help demolish houses to make fire lanes in the city, and of the 14,000 or so fatalities in the following months, 6,000 of them were school children.
There was also a display of roof tiles, showing how the surface of the tiles had bubbled where they had been exposed, but were normal where they had been protected by another tile. The display was interesting, but there was a volunteer at one side explaining it, and as I turned to go she gave me an origami crane. She didn't have a pile of them - I wonder if she folds them while she's working, but I couldn't see where she'd keep the paper for them. It was such an unexpected and lovely thing to do, and it really touched me. I'm keeping the crane safe in my case where it can't get crushed.
Anyway, the museum is a very moving place. It's currently undergoing renovations (I imagine a lot of places are getting ready for the Olympics), and as I left I spotted some more archaeologists working away. They had some interesting shallow pits, and it made me curious about what sort of footprint old Japanese communities would have left. I may have to read up on Japanese archaeology!
After the peace park, I headed back to Hiroshima station to find my way out to Miyajima-guchi and the ferry to my hotel. Bizarrely, on my way from Miyajima-guchi station to the ferry port, a random lady came up to me and gave me another origami crane. So now I have two, and I love them both.
The ferry only takes 10 minutes - just long enough for a couple of pictures from the water. The famous red archway in the water is the Ohtorri Gate, and it's amazing to see it in real life. It seems quite insignificant here, but from the island it dominates the area.
But I didn't get to see the gate up close straight away. First I had to check in to my hotel.
This was the day. It's been such an amazing and unexpected day - I don't want to put a dampner on what's to come, but I think today will be the best day of the entire trip. And I'm saying that even though I pulled a muscle in my hip and now I'm walking with a jolly little limp. It's just been that good.
To tell you the truth, I was a little worried about my journey today. I didn't have a ticket reserved on the train, and although I knew there are unreserved seats on every train, I didn't know if there would be any available when I got on at Kyoto. Then I noticed there wasn't a through train, and I'd have to change at Shin-Osaka. Finally, I knew I had some possibly complicated changes in Hiroshima, what with wanting to get on the tour bus at the station, then needing to get out to Miyajima-guchi station, find the ferry, board the ferry, and find the hotel on the other side. And so, with over an hour to wait for the train I wanted to catch, I checked out of my Kyoto hotel and wandered to the station, wanting plenty of time in case things went pear shaped.
The journey could not really have gone any more smoothly. The train started at Kyoto, so seats were not a problem. The change at Shin-Osaka was easy. Hiroshima station is very clearly signposted, like all stations I've been to so far, so I had no trouble finding the coin lockers to leave my suitcase while I headed off for the tour bus.
It was while I was putting my case into one of the lockers that I managed to pull the muscle in my hip (it feels like the right place for the transversus abdominis, for anyone in the know). Bit of a bugger, but it's not too bad, as long as I take stairs slowly.
Finally, suitcase free and still able to move around, I headed out into Hiroshima.
Atomic Bomb Dome.
The Dome was very sombre. They're currently doing some structural work to make sure it can withstand earthquakes, so there was a bit of activity inside, but it still had a quiet, medatitive feel to it. A fair few people were sitting on the benches surrounding and just staring.
So, quick summary. When the bomb was dropped, it was detonated about 600m almost directly above the Dome, which is why so much of it is still intact. The museum, which I visited afterwards, had this display showing the city immediately after the bombing.
The red ball indicates the hypocentre of the explosion.
I don't know if you can see from the photo, but everything except the lumps in the centre was completely flattened.
The museum had me in tears. There were some pretty gruesome images and reconstructions, but the worst things were the incidental things. There was a section taken from the steps of a bank, showing a dark 'shadow' where someone had been sitting when the bomb went off. The heat and radiation made the stone around it much paler, but where the person was shielding it, it remained the same colour. There were lots of displays of clothes belonging to people who had been caught in the blast. Most of them were school uniforms, or objects belonging to school children - many of the higher years had been drafted to help demolish houses to make fire lanes in the city, and of the 14,000 or so fatalities in the following months, 6,000 of them were school children.
There was also a display of roof tiles, showing how the surface of the tiles had bubbled where they had been exposed, but were normal where they had been protected by another tile. The display was interesting, but there was a volunteer at one side explaining it, and as I turned to go she gave me an origami crane. She didn't have a pile of them - I wonder if she folds them while she's working, but I couldn't see where she'd keep the paper for them. It was such an unexpected and lovely thing to do, and it really touched me. I'm keeping the crane safe in my case where it can't get crushed.
Anyway, the museum is a very moving place. It's currently undergoing renovations (I imagine a lot of places are getting ready for the Olympics), and as I left I spotted some more archaeologists working away. They had some interesting shallow pits, and it made me curious about what sort of footprint old Japanese communities would have left. I may have to read up on Japanese archaeology!
After the peace park, I headed back to Hiroshima station to find my way out to Miyajima-guchi and the ferry to my hotel. Bizarrely, on my way from Miyajima-guchi station to the ferry port, a random lady came up to me and gave me another origami crane. So now I have two, and I love them both.
Approaching the island.
The ferry only takes 10 minutes - just long enough for a couple of pictures from the water. The famous red archway in the water is the Ohtorri Gate, and it's amazing to see it in real life. It seems quite insignificant here, but from the island it dominates the area.
But I didn't get to see the gate up close straight away. First I had to check in to my hotel.
My hotel room, downstairs.
My room is incredible. It's not the full on traditional Japanese room, but it's a lovely combination of traditional and modern. The staircase leads up to an area with a bed, a side table, and a TV, which it beautiful, and downstairs I have two chairs like the one you can see, tatami matting (plastic, rather than real reed, but I can forgive a hotel for that), and all the amenities you'd normally expect a hotel to have. I could stay here forever!
The best bit about the hotel, though, is that it provides dinner as well as breakfast (a fact which I had known, and completely forgotten, so it was a pleasant surprise when I checked in). Dinner was... I'm not sure how to describe it. Huge. Properly Japanese. Occasionally weird. Here's the menu they gave me when I sat down.
Menu. This is a set meal for one.
Count the headings. There were 11 courses to my meal this evening. 11. It was a good job I was planning an evening walk, because I was too full to sit down. Also, about a third of this menu was cooked at my table, and mostly by me. The hot pot involved putting vegetables into a boiling bowl of stock, then waving really thin slices of fish in the water for a second or two to cook them. The meat dish came with 4 small pieces of beef and pork which I had to fry on a little cooking lamp thing. And the rice dish at the end was set cooking as I started the appertizer, then served up towards the end.
Dessert - rare cheese mousse. I hoped this was a translation issue, and was expecting some sort of cheesecake type thing. No. This was an actual mousse that tasted of actual cheese, with a lemon sauce on top. Oddly, it worked, but it was a strange mixture of flavours.
I think the meal took roughly an hour to eat. I tottered off afterwards, clutching the remains of my rice dish which the waitress kindly made up into onigiri for me (a rice ball), and wondering if I was ever going to eat again (hint, yes I will).
Once I had collected my things and made notes about my meal (it felt like one of my day tours - by the time I'd reached the end, I'd half forgotten what had come at the start), I headed off into town to get a good look at the wonders therein.
It was dark by this time, so I spent a lot of time experimenting with the settings on my camera.
The Ohtorii Gate.
It was difficult getting the colour to come out right - with the gate lit up so brightly, and the lack of other lights around, most of my photos are a bit on the glarey side. But the above is just about the right colour - a lovely, orange-red that glows in the spotlights. It's absolutely stunning seeing it in the dark, and while I imagine the area is crowded during the day, there was barely anyone around while I was out. Maybe because the night was fairly chilly, or maybe because the actual shrines close before the sun sets. The only problem was that the famous, front-on view was almost completely monopolised by the shrine complex that juts out into the bay, meaning I wandered a long time just to find a little crack to peek through. The photos I took from the front will need a bit of editing, though, so I'll save those for another day.
The final photo I've got for you is of the 5-storied pagoda. My camera has a scene option (as many do) where you pick your environment and it adjusts the photos accordingly. Mine is hit or miss whether it's any good, but I thought I'd try with the low light and no tripod option and see what it could do.
The 5-storied pagoda.
I'm not sure what it did, but the photo looks like a painting. The pagoda itself is half way up a hill, so it's rising out of pitch black trees like a beacon - it's beautiful to see.
I realise this has been a long post. I didn't think, when I woke up, that I'd have this much to talk about by the end of the day. To make a long story short, though, if you go nowhere else in Japan, come here. Hiroshima is the friendliest city I've been to so far, and Miyajima is the perfect way to chill out after the emotional rollercoaster of the A-bomb memorials. And I absolutely recommend the Kinsui Villa hotel.
On that note, I'm going to explore the general bed area of my room. Goodnight all!
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