Finally, Hiroshima (part 2)

This is part 2 of a blog post about my recent trip to Hiroshima.  You can read part 1 here. 

Some of you will know about my love of Hiroshima style okonomiyaki and my "pursuit of perfection", trying to find a great okonomiyaki restaurant in Tokyo.  Well I was now in the home of okonomiyaki and I was determined to have some great okonomiyaki.

We woke up in the morning and guess what.......it was raining!  After dropping my bags off at the next place I was staying at, all of us went in search of okonomiyaki.  

On our way, we walked along a covered shopping street.

Halfway along Toby and I saw a sign that was a real blast from the past!

Nova was the company that Toby and I both used to work for.  The company eventually went bankrupt, and I know a lot of people (Toby included) were affected by that.  It was bought out by another company, but now operates on a much smaller scale than before.


 We went to an okonomiyaki place called Michan.  I would have liked to show some photos of the okonomiyaki being cooked but for some reason they don't allow photos to be taken, so this shot outside the restaurant after we stuffed ourselves will have to do.  It was good, but for me, not the best but I know the others loved it!

By this time, it was 1 o'clock so we went back to our Ryokan from last night so everyone else could get their bags and the set off to Miyajima island.

Miyajima island is off the coast of Hiroshima and accessible via a 15 minute ferry ride.  

As terrible as the weather was, it did make for some spectacular photos of the island from the ferry.  Very hauntingly beautiful!

It seriously felt like I was in a Jurassic Park movie!

We got off the ferry on the other side and made our way to the hotel where Toby, Tim, Steve and Eriko were going to stay at for the night (I had decided to head back to Hiroshima for the night and stay there.......for more okonomiyaki!)  It was about a 5 or 10 minute walk after we arrived.

The room at this place was very nice, and Japanese style as well.  The hotel staff who showed us to their room also made some tea for us and left us to relax.

After a quick powernap,

it was time to head out again and explore Miyajima island.

I said before that I felt like I was heading to Jurassic Park with the way the clouds were hanging low over the mountains, but there were no dinosaurs on Miyajima island, just these guys.

There were a lot of deer, just wandering the streets.  Some of them would come right up close behind you and sniff your pockets looking for food.

A lot of the buildings on Miyajima are beautiful traditional style, just how I like them, and the shopping streets with all sorts of shops was great!  This was the street that ran along the sea, near the ferry port.

 

And the main shopping street just behind it.

Wooden spoons are a popular souvenir from the island.  Wooden spoons are traditionally used to serve rice here as they don't affect the flavour of the rice.

Okonomiyaki restaurants, of course......no, I didn't go in!

Another souvenir shop

and another.

And another shot of the local wildlife relaxing on the steps of a bank.

Deer are considered sacred in the Japanese Shinto religion as they are seen as messengers of the Gods.

Wandering along the street we saw, off to the side, a set of very steep steps heading up somewhere, so, of course, we went up!

At the top was a nice little shrine, and a fantastic view over the town.

Coming back down the steps were pretty dangerous with all of the rain and deer cr#p on them, and sure enough, one of us took a fall.  Luckily it wasn't serious, but we got down to the bottom of the steps and this guy was there staring at us.  It had an evil look on it's face like it was thinking "Yes, got him!".

At the end of the shopping street was the entrance to Itsukushima shrine which is World Heritage Listed.

Itsukushima shrine is also famous for it's Grand Gate that is set out in the ocean, and at high tide it is a fantastic view.  At low tide you can actually walk out to the gate.  Luckily, the tide was in when we were there.

Pretty soon it was time for me to be heading back to Hiroshima so I said goodbye to the others and headed back to the ferry port and back to Hiroshima.

The place that I stayed at for the second night was a Guesthouse called Guesthouse Carpe.  Carpe is owned and run by a friend of Toby's called Kayo.  Guesthouse Carpe has quite high ratings on tripadvisor, and for good reason.  Kayo is very welcoming, friendly and goes out of her way to make you feel comfortable.  In fact, the whole time I was there, It just felt like I was family or a friend, rather than a guest, and this is one of the reasons it gets sch high ratings.  If you are going to be heading to Hiroshima, then you should check out Guesthouse Carpe.

Later that night I went back into the city to go to a place called Okonomimura.  

 It is a building with more than 20 okonomiyaki restaurants in it!  Wow, talk about paradise!!  Imagine trying to make a choice about which one to eat at.  That is exactly what I was contemplating when I hear "Hello, welcome we have an English menu".  That was all I needed.  I turned around and saw a lady (Yukina) with a big smile on her face and I went on in to her restaurant.  The name of the restaurant was simply "Ron".

I ordered the okonomiyaki with spring onion topping and sat down to watch a professional in action!  A thin crepe with a big pile of cabbage and bean sprouts

topped with pork.

 It then gets flipped over and the cabbage and bean sprouts start to reduce in size.

 Next on to the hotplate are the noodles. 

An egg is cracked onto the hotplate and everything is put on top of the egg.  It is then flipped over again and covered with a sweet sauce and spring onions.  I didn't get photos of all of that because I was too excited!  Here is the finished product.  It didn't last very long, and it was good!

I stayed on after I finished the okonomiyaki as there was a soccer game on tv.  Yukina and I had a chat, half in English and half in Japanese, (where I could).  Again, if you are heading to Hiroshima, head over to Okonomimura and find "Ron" and say Hi to Yukina and enjoy some of her okonomiyaki.

I left Ron and headed back to catch the streetcar back to Guesthouse Carpe.  On the way I passed the nuclear dome again and it was lit up.  I had to stop and take some pictures.

It was a beautiful sight, standing there proud and defiant, a symbol to the rest of the world of the resilience of the people of Hiroshima.

My time in Hiroshima was, unfortunately, coming to an end.  I woke up the next morning and said goodbye to Kayo and went back to Hiroshima train station to meet up with the others.  I got there early and figured I had time to fit in one more meal of okonomiyaki, so I found "Fukuchan" just outside the station.

Another good meal, and I was satisfied.  I met up with the others in the train station.  As it turned out, I took a different train, so I said goodbye and made my way back to Tokyo.  I had enjoyed spending the last couple of days with some great people, especially Toby, Tim, Steve, Eriko and Kayo.  It was an emotional couple of days, and I had seen some things that were quite confronting, but very important to see nonetheless.  Two days was not nearly enough, however, and I do plan to go back to Hiroshima and spend some more time there, stay at Guesthouse Carpe and eat okonomiyaki from Ron.

Well, that's it from Hiroshima.  I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed being there.  See you again soon.

Finally, Hiroshima (part 1)

If there was one city that I really regretted not visiting last time I lived here, it was Hiroshima.  I mean, my favourite food is from Hiroshima, and the city has so much (unfortunate) history to it.  As you all probably are well aware, Hiroshima is one of only two cities in the world that has had an Atomic bomb dropped on it.  The other, of course, is Nagasaki, which makes Japan the only country in the world that has been the victim of an atomic attack.  Now, I don't go into politics on this blog, I leave that to other people.  All I'll say is that the Japanese are a very resilient nationality, and the patience and persistence they show in picking themselves back up again after devastating events is truly remarkable.  Hiroshima is now, understandably, at the forefront of a global push to wipe out nuclear weapons.

The opportunity finally came up for me to visit recently.  A guy that I used to work with here last time, Toby, was coming over to Japan for a visit and told me that he was planning to go to Hiroshima.  I quickly decided to join him, and started planning for it.  He was going with two friends from Australia, Tim and Steve, and Steve's friend from Osaka, Eriko.  The plan was for me to catch the shinkansen (bullet train) meet them in Shin Osaka before heading on to Hiroshima together.  I made my way to Tokyo station at the horrible time of 7:30 (I usually only start work at 2:30pm!) and found my ride amongst the puzzle of train platforms.

Nice huh?  The inside is quite comfortable, more room than and aeroplane and the seats lean back a whole lot further than an aeroplane too.

They cruise along at anywhere between 285 to over 300 km/h.  A lot of the bends that they go around are banked so that the train doesn't derail as they go around them.  All in all, a very nice, comfortable way to travel, just damn  expensive!  Tokyo to Hiroshima (about four hours, 700km) costs about $180 each way, but even that is cheaper than flying.  The cheapest way to get there is by overnight bus (about $80 one way) but that takes 12 hours, and I am not as young as I used to be, and I'm afraid I might stiff and sore!

So the train pulled away from the station and didn't get anywhere near top speed until we cleared Yokohama to the south of Tokyo.  As the train headed out into the country Japan I got my camera out (I only ever use my mobile phone camera) and took a few pictures of the countryside.

I love how the camera can't keep up with the speed of the train and the bottom of the photo warps.  I sit here now wondering if this is what time travel looks like........

I took this photo to show how close the train going the other way is to the train I am on.

 The trains thunder past in the other direction which rocks the train you are on around as the air being pushed in front of the train knocks into yours.  Just as I was taking another photo of the beautiful countryside, a train blasts past me, making my heart skip a beat!  This is how that photo turned out!

The sound of the shinkansen at top speed is a mixture of a low rumbling sound and a high pitched noise that sounds like the air is screaming as (I don't know how many) tons of train smashes into it.  The noise is quite subdued though, and the air conditioning in the carriage almost makes more noise than the train.

I got to Shin Osaka and changed to my next shinkansen and as it left the station, I went for a walk through all of the carriages looking for Toby, Tim and Steve.  I couldn't see them and walked back to my seat wondering if they had made it or not.  About halfway to Hiroshima my answer came in a text message from Toby.  Their connecting train was late (very rare here) getting to Shin Osaka and they missed the one that I was on.  No problems though as they were able to get on the next one and they arrived about an hour after I did.

After meeting up, we made our way to where we were to stay for the night.  We stayed in a Ryokan, or a traditional Japanese Inn.  These places are very nice, traditional Japanese style rooms and this particular one had a very high rating on trip advisor.

Here are a few shots of the room that we were in.

Very nice, as you can see!

We left our things there and made our way to the nuclear museum.  On our way there Toby took us through some backstreets looking for something very special.  I must say here that Toby has visited Hiroshima a number of times and really knows his way around, so without him, we would really have been lost.  Finding what he was looking for, he lead us over to this little monument that even some people who live in Hiroshima don't know exists.

I hope you can make out what it says.  If not, it is basically saying that it was 600m above this exact spot that the atomic bomb detonated, blasting the city with heat rays of between 3,000 to 4,000 degrees C.  This sight gave me chills as I briefly contemplated what I was reading.  We didn't have much time to reflect though as we wanted to get through the museum before it closed.  Luckily I was able to head back here the next night by myself, and I just stood there looking at the monument reflecting on what happened on that day.

The museum itself is divided into two sections.  The first is the child friendly section.  The second part is where it gets more graphic and heart wrenching.  

I will let some photos now continue with the story.

This is a watch that was recovered after the bomb.  As you can see, the watch stopped at exactly 8:15.

These are the official orders that committed Hiroshima to it's fate.

And this is how Hiroshima looked after the blast.

Nothing left standing except the shells of a few buildings made of ferro-concrete.  

I took another photo of a quote by a photographer who was at the scene but the photo didn't turn out very clear.  The photographer said "I fought with myself for 30 minutes before I could take the first picture.  After taking the first, I grew strangely calm and wanted to get closer.  I took about 10 steps forward and tried to snap another but the scenes were so gruesome my viewfinder clouded with tears".  This is the photo that he took.

There was one fact that I read which completely took my breath away.  It said that at the time of the bombing (August 6th 1945), about 350,000 people were in Hiroshima.  By the end of December 1945, 140,000 people had died due to the atomic bomb.......

I moved past the first part of the museum and Toby said to me "here is where it starts to get difficult".  I had had problems chocking back the tears in the first part so couldn't imagine what was to come.  Moving into the next part, the first sight I see is a recreation of a scene that must have been a common, yet grisly, sight at the time.  People walking along with their clothes in tatters and skin hanging from their limbs.

It is here that I will say that I was walking around listening to an audio guide.  I haven't taken a lot of pictures of this part of the museum as it is quite heartbreaking, but listening to the audio was incredibly difficult.  There were a lot of exhibits of items of clothing that had been found.  For each item, they were able to tell the name of the person who it belonged to and what happened to them.  Listening to these personal accounts and stories was saddening, horrific and heart wrenching.  I will show a couple of photos from this section though.  Here is the explanation of the next exhibit I will show.

They have actually taken the steps of the bank and brought them in as an exhibit.  I am sure you can make out the shadow that they talk of.

Outside of the museum, there is a memorial to a little girl called Sadako.

The story of Sadako is told inside the museum.  Sadako was two years old at the time Hiroshima was levelled by the atomic bomb.  She was in her house about two kilometres for the blast site but the force of the blast blew her out of a window in the house.  She the blast.  Nine years later she became sick and was diagnosed with leukaemia.  Within a few months she was hopitalised and was given a year to live.  One of her friends from school came to visit her in hospital and folded a piece of paper into an origami crane.  An ancient Japanese story tells that a person who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish from the Gods.  Sadako's wish, of course, was to be able to live.  She eventually folded her thousand cranes but didn't stop there, she kept going.  Survival, however, was not to be granted by the Gods, and on the morning of 25th October 1955, with her family around her, Sadako died aged 12.  There is a photo of Sadako in the museum resting peacefully at her funeral.

Such an incredibly sad story, and I am glad that this part of the museum was quite dark.  This was one of the last displays, and we made our way outside in silence.

After leaving the museum, we made our way to the spot nearby that was the intended target of the bomb.  It was a bridge commonly known as the T bridge due to it's shape.

As I was taking these photos, I couldn't help but think that this is probably exactly what was happening on the morning of August 6th 1945.  People were probably just going about their business completely unaware of what was about to happen.

From here it was just a short walk to the nuclear dome.  It was the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall.  It is one of the few buildings that remained standing after the bomb and was designated as a World Heritage Site in 1996.

It stands proud in defiance of what the city suffered through and I see it as a symbol of resilience of the people of Hiroshima.

Needless to say, it was a pretty emotional and powerful afternoon that we had just been through, and we needed something to lighten the mood.  We were in luck as the annual fireworks display happened to be on that night at Hiroshima port so we piled on to a streetcar and made our way there to see the display.

I think most of Hiroshima was there as the place was packed full of people, but we were able to get a spot with a reasonable view.

After the fireworks display, we went to an Izakaya for a bit to eat and bumped into a group of girls who had been to a baseball game that night.  The swallows are a Tokyo team, so I guess they had come all the way from Tokyo to watch the game.

And with that the end of the first day in Hiroshima arrived.  It had been a incredibly confronting, sad and heartbreaking day, but I was happy to have seen what I did, as I think it is important to remember what has happened in the past sometimes, to make sure it doesn't happen gain in the future.  Being one of the reasons that I wanted to come to Hiroshima, I had fulfilled a strong desire.  I really recommend that, if you come to Japan, you really need to visit the museum and dome, if nothing else.  You will be glad you did.

So, one of my reasons for coming to Hiroshima had been satisfied.  The other was to be satisfied the next day.  Part 2 of my visit to Hiroshima will be coming soon.  

Thanks for reading, and see you soon.