Hat rides the Shit-kansen... cough cough

Kobe-Hiroshima

So Jill and I arose mighty early on Thursday morning to get our trip to Hiroshima started. We began by taking a local train to Kobe, a city not far from Osaka. Kobe is famous for Kobe beef. It is also famous for the major earthquake that occurred in the 90s (I think). We first decided to buy our ticket to Hiroshima, you know get it out of the way. We were quoted for a regular train $50 and 5 hours long…or the super fast Shinkansen which would take only one hour and cost $95. Well, time not being on our side, we bit the bullet and paid the big bucks for the famous Japanese Shinkansen. We then left the station and headed for Kobe’s Chinatown called Nankinmachi. A colorful and eclectic street filled with vendors selling all kinds of yummy food. After pigging out there, we headed for the harbor front. It was a beautiful sunny day. The only thing holding me back was my extremely heavy backpack and cursed umbrella (I would have thrown away the umbrella, but it is a really good one, and in my town you need this friend, hence hanging onto the stupid umbrella throughout the whole trip even though it didn’t rain a single day).

After some water front action, we headed back to catch the Shinkansen to Hiroshima......Jill and I were waiting on the platform and we heard 6...5...4....and we whipped out our cameras expecting the train to come speeding in......hahahah, no no, it was no countdown at all, but we think we overly get excited when we hear countdowns because the New Years countdown was such a blur. One time in Miyajima we asked a guy to take our picture in front of a shrine. All was going well until he started a countdown in Jap-english and all hell broke loose, we were both on the verge of tears because the countdown made us laugh. We look way too excited in the picture…I think we did a re-do minus the countdown…just a simple cheesue. Anyways, we got onto the Shinkansen, and could only find seats in…wait for it… the dreaded smoking section. YES that’s right, people can smoke on any train, even when you pay $100 for a one-way hour trip. So needless to say we smelt great when we got off.....Thus I have re-named the train the Shit-kansen. Thank Buddha it was fast though.

When we got to Hiroshima, we immediately took the street car to the central bus station and ditched our bags in a locker. Then we found our way to the A-Dome. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site, deemed important because it is one of the only buildings left after the atomic bomb ‘little boy’ was dropped in 1945. The building stands like a skeleton out of the rubble. It is also lit by dim lighting at night to add to the dramatic aura surrounding the site.
Close to the A-Dome was the Children’s Peace Memorial Park. There we saw the monument to Sadako. Sadako was a little girl who survived the atomic bomb when she was 2 years old, but then died from Leukemia as a result of the effects at age 12. But before she died she started making paper cranes in her efforts to make a wish. There is a legend that says if a person folds 1000 paper cranes they can have a wish. Sadako wanted to run again. But sadly she died before she finished. But now there is a monument to her in the park, and people from all over the world send and make paper cranes in her honor, and to honor the other children who died in the bomb. The colorful picture is one of many bunches of paper cranes that people have made for her.

Then we went to the Peace Memorial Park. We had to pass by The Flame of Peace. The university lit the flame and will only extinguish it when all atomic bombs are destroyed. We also passed the Cenotaph. Then we went into the Peace Memorial Museum. Here we saw disturbing pictures and items of war. They had a huge diagram of the city pre-and post bombing. They also had watches on display that had stopped at the exact second the bomb exploded above Hiroshima.
Cranes
After all that we had worked up a serious appetite and decided to go to the Okonomiyaki village. Okinomiyaki is my favorite dish in Japan, so you can imagine my excitement. And Hiroshima has a unique way of crafting this mecha mecha oishi meal. Then we had delicious crapes….always welcome in my books. Since it was dark and we were tired we headed back to the bus station to find our hostel. Our hostel was in the middle of nowhere, and a mighty hard hike up a hill to get to…but they had free green tea in the common area, and warm beds.
Hiroshima Castle

Museum

Next day.........Miyajima!!!!!!!!

The next pictures are of Hiroshima castle tower, and Hiroshima Contemporary Art museum, where I saw an amazing exhibition on Japanese Edo period wood block painters. UKIYOE à la carte: The World of HOKUSAI, HIROSHIGE, KUNISADA, KUNIYOSHI, and Others.