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Published: January 3rd 2008
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Kobe
The Teppanyaki restaurant where we enjoyed Kobe beef! Delicious! Our time in Kyoto had run out, so we hopped a train to Osaka. Osaka didn't impress us much after living in Tokyo - it has many of the same attractions on a smaller scale. So we decided to spend more of our time exploring the incredible surrounding areas of Kobe, and Nara. We arrived - in the rain - and after checking our packs at the hotel decided immediately to head to
Kobe. Kobe is a fun town. We managed to squeeze a lot into one afternoon: Chinatown, a walk by the pier, the Earthquake memorial, and most importantly a meal involving
Kobe beef! We found a Teppan-yaki restaurant that served Kobe beef along with other types of beef. To try the difference (and to save some cash! Kobe beef = expensive!) we ordered one Kobe and one non-Kobe. While we don't consider ourselves to be beef experts, the difference was astounding! The standard beef was really good, but the Kobe was maybe the most tender piece of meat we have ever eaten (they were both the same cut). It just melted in our mouths! Amazing!
The
Kobe earthquake rocked the city in 1995, killing more than 6,000 people with a
7.3 on the richter scale. It's hard to imagine an earthquake doing so much damage - in only 20 seconds. Luckily, we've only felt a few really, really small earthquakes since we've been in Japan, but they're still strong enough to shake the ground for 10-20 seconds.
The next day we went to
Nara, which we both loved. It's like a mini version of Kyoto, with 8 Unesco world heritage sites and a lot of charm and good walks! We visited
Todai-ji shrine - the home of the biggest buddha in Japan (16 metres tall). There were also many Sika deer - regarded as messengers of the gods - that roam the grounds. The deer are used to being fed by humans so are not afraid to approach you, in fact we saw many of the deer biting at people's pockets if they thought there was food in there! We also visited Kasugayama Primeval forest,
Kasuga shrine, and
Kofuku-ji. We really enjoyed our day in Nara, despite the rain!
We took our first shinkansen - bullet train - from Osaka to
Hiroshima. A five hour bus ride became a 1.5 hour bullet train ride. It was great. We absolutely loved
Kobe - Chinatown
Twins! Looking good maam! Hiroshima. It is a beautiful and interesting city. We spent all 3 nights in a mixed dorm room at a hostel called J-Hoppers.
Our first day in Hiroshima we took the ferry to
Miyajima Island (Itsukushima) to see one of the top 3 most-photographed sights in Japan, the floating torii. We experienced 9 different changes in the weather during the day from sunny to overcast to full-blown snow storm to clear again!!! It was actually nice to see the shrine with the big snowflakes coming down. Like Nara, they also had some really friendly deer!
New Year's Eve was a funny time. Our hostel hosts cooked up lots of soba noodles and tofu, chicken and other toppings for a great feast! Apparently it's tradition to eat soba noodles on New Year's Eve. We ended up walking to downtown Hiroshima with a group of people that resembled the Disney ride "It's a small world". There were us two Canadians, three Americans, two Aussies, two Korean girls, one Malaysian guy, two Japanese people, a British couple, one Spanish guy and an Eskimo (ok we made up the Eskimo one). We all had a great time. The bar we ended up at had
Kobe
Port - the site of the devastating earthquake of 1995. They preserved a part of the damage as a memorial of the tragedy. a 1000 Yen cover charge (about 10 Cdn dollars) but that price included a nice spread of food.
On New Year's day we used our new Skype (internet phone) account to call our friend Adam's house, where most of our friends would be partying. It was hilarious as they were about 5 minutes away from their countdown and the conversation went like this:
A: Hello, who's this?
T: Hey Adam, It's Travis!
A: (to the party) OOOH WE GOT TRAVIE AND MAAM ON THE PHONE. (party cheers)
A: (to Travis) HEY TRAVO HOW MANY HOURS AHEAD ARE YOU?
T: 14
A: SO WHAT'S 2008 looking like?
T: So far so good!
A: (to the party) HEY GUYS HE SAYS 2008 IS SO FAR SO GOOD!!
(the party cheers)
A: (to the party) Now shut up and let me talk!
The conversation made the two of us laugh and laugh. It was great to talk to our friends for the first time in months! They all passed the phone around so we could talk to everyone at the party. It sounded like they had a great time!
After the conversation we walked to the Peace Memorial, Gokoku Shrine
Nara
Strolling through the old city and Hiroshima castle. The peace memorial is pretty sobering as it is almost directly under the impact point of the
A-Bomb detonation on August 6, 1945. More than 140,000 people died either directly because of the Hiroshima A-Bomb detonation, or as a result of exposure to radiation thereafter. While the two of us were there on New Year's day, there were several old Japanese people laying flowers and wiping tears. It was a powerful image of how terrible the impact of this bomb was, and continues to be.
The bomb exploded about 600 metres above the ground and completely destroyed the city. In the memorial there are too many tragic stories about survivors' experiences. It was difficult to witness the terrible effects of the bomb that did so much damage. What was inspiring about the bombing is how quickly the survivors picked up the pieces and rebuilt the city. A plaque in the memorial states that the survivors were inspired by new green grass and trees with new buds on them. Plants that were so burned and ravaged by the heat and radiation of the bomb that they were expected to never grow again. Another popular story from the bombing
Nara - Kasugayama Primeval Forest
Many deer roam free in Nara. They are so comfortable with humans that they will often nuzzle your pockets to see if any food is in there! of Hiroshima is
Sadako Sasaki and the 1,000 paper cranes. Hiroshima mayors now strongly criticize any nuclear weapons testing and armaments. Hiroshima has become a city of the advocacy of peace. It was a very powerful experience for us.
During Hatsumode, which is first few days of the new year, it is traditional to visit three different shrines. Gokoku is the biggest shrine in Hiroshima, so many of the locals visited this one on January 1st. The shrine was so busy, with people lining up to pray at the shrine so we lined up with them to take part in this custom.
The next day we enjoyed another walk on a crisp, sunny day in beautiful Hiroshima and visited the sobering Hiroshima Peace Museum. We caught a 5 hour bus to our last stop in Japan -
Fukuoka on Kyushu.
We arrived late at night and fell asleep after checking in to our inn. The next day we were very lucky to catch a special festival called
Tamaseseri. In the festival, two teams of loincloth-clad men battle to gain possession of a wooden ball. One team (made up of local fishermen) represents the sea, and one team (made up of local farmers) represents
Nara - Kasuga Shrine
Ancient lanterns line the walkways the land. If the sea team wins, a good year of fishing is predicted. If the land team wins, a good harvest for the coming year is predicted. We're not quite sure who won (we couldn't tell the teams apart as all participants were wearing white loin-cloths!), but it was quite amusing to see grown men hoisting their teammates onto their shoulders, passing around a ball and throwing water into the mob!
We're sad to leave Japan as we've had so many amazing and unforgettable memories here, but we're excited about the next part of our adventure. We can't say enough great things about Japan and highly recommend visiting this great and beautiful country.
Next time we write it will be from a much warmer climate (yatta!!!) and, we imagine, a very different culture!
Thanks for joining us for the first few months of our travels, all the comments, phone calls and emails have really been appreciated and helped us to not feel too homesick.
Happy New Year and we hope everyone has a great 2008!
Sayonara Nippon,
Love Michelle & Travis
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Sheila
non-member comment
Happy New Year
Thanks for the fabulous tour of Japan. Can't wait to see whats next. hugs