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Published: August 4th 2009
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My brother Jimmy came over for a visit and we did some traveling around Japan instead of just staying in Tokyo the whole time. We headed south for a two day visit to Hiroshima. It was an absolutely amazing and moving experience. The devastation that was caused by my home country dropping an atomic bomb on this city was disturbing, but in all of the museums and memorials, they don't blame the US. The city is all about peace and helping get rid of all atomic and nuclear weapons. What was really surprising is how built up and modern Hiroshima is. They have Starbucks and McDonalds every 6 blocks just like every other city in the world. This was shocking since they didn't think any plant life would even grow there for 75 years after the bomb. Jimmy was the perfect travel partner here, because he is a US History teacher so his knowledge and interest in WWII was above and beyond. We went to Peace Memorial Park and saw the A-Bomb Dome, walked through the Peace Museum, which was so interesting (learned more about the war there than I did in high school) and had an eye opening experience with
Cranes for Peace
People from all over the world send 1,000 paper cranes as a sign of peace the personal stories and pictures. We also visited the The Hall of Remembrance and the Children's Memorial which was set up in honor of Sadoko. Sadoko was a little girl who was 2 years old when the Atomic bomb was dropped and at the age of 12 was diagnosed with leukemia which was very common during that time from the after effects of the radiation exposure. She believed that if she folded 1,000 paper cranes she would be cured. Sadly it was not the case. It is a beautiful story if you ever have a chance to read it (it is a children's book, about 40 pages). I read it on the train down to Hiroshima and had tears flowing down my cheeks. We did manage to have some fun in Hiroshima too. We went to a baseball game between the Hiroshima Carp and the Yokohama Baystars. We sat in the visitors cheering section and endured the loud band and chanting for 9 innings. Their cheering worked as the Baystars defeated the Carp. Luckily the section was not all that crowded because I have yet to mention it was at least 95 degrees while we were there. We also went
Children's Peace Monument
Sadako on top holding a crane to the island of Miyajima for a couple of hours. It is just a 45 minute ferry ride from Hiroshima. It is famous for having a "floating" Torii. They also have deer all over the island hanging out, and they are not afraid of humans. You could pet them if you are into petting dirty, wild animals (I am not). And they liked to eat paper for some reason. We visited Daisho-in Temple (one of the coolest I've been too and I've been to a lot of temples this year) as well as Itsukushima Shrine, and ate lunch. Jimmy tried the islands speciality of Anago-meshi (broiled conger eel) and Oysters. I stuck with pork curry. I'm not all the adventurous with my eating these days.
After 2 days in Hiroshima and 2 nights in the world's smallest hotel room, we headed back north to Kyoto. We made a brief stop in Himeji to see Himeji Castle. Most castles in Japan have been gutted in the inside, and it is just the outside structure that is the only authentic thing about the castle. Himeji Castle was different. They kept the inside as it was from the 16th century. All the
wood floors, (no shoes aloud, you carried yours in a plastic grocery bag they provided) crazy steep stairs (6 floors including the basement), secret hiding spaces incase of attacks, holes in the floor to drop boiling water or rocks on your enemy climbing up the walls and gun racks galore. Really I'm not sure of what the castle held. Its sole purpose seemed to be to protect it from outsiders. But what they were protecting, I have no clue. It seems like it would have been very stressful to live in. We also visited Nishi-Oyashiki Garden which had about 15 different types of Japanese gardens. I wish we hadn't been walking around for 3 hours and starving for lunch, because it would've been great to spend more than the 30 minutes we did since I rushed us through so I could eat.
We got to Kyoto late in the afternoon with no place to stay. We had reserved a hotel on-line before we left and Jimmy thought to check his email for hotel confirmation while we were on our way to Kyoto. We were not confirmed. Luckily Stephen checked out a few places on-line for us after my frantic
emails to him, and we found one a few blocks from the train station. Good thing we had a map of Kyoto (compliments of me). Otherwise, we would've never found the specific hotel Stephen gave us and would've been walking into every hotel asking them if they had space. I left my backpacking days when I was 20 and did not want to go back. For some reason the hotel room was twice the cost the second night. We didn't care, we were just happy to have a room. We did think it odd though. Well it turned out the Gion-Matsuri festival, one of Japan's biggest was going on in Kyoto come Friday. What luck! The festivities actually began the night we arrived. The festival started hundreds of years ago to thank the gods for curing a plague of some sort. They have a about 30 floats set up within a 6 block radius and tons and tons of food. Everyone is dressed up (men and women) in their summer kimonos. Jimmy and I unfortunately forgot ours😊. We spent one of our nights just wandering up and down the streets of the festival eating our dinner at all the different
Hall of Remembrance
It is made up of 140,000 tiles (the number of people killed by the end of 1945). The symbol in the middle is a clock with 8:15 am, the time the A-Bomb exploded food stalls. We walked through the crowds (it was just packed with people) until our feet wouldn't take anymore. The actual parade of floats was on Friday, but we were already headed back to Tokyo. During our days in Kyoto we went to a lot of Temples (Ginkaku-ji, Rokuon-ji, Myoshin-ji, Kiyomizdera), Nijo Castle (which has the "Nightingale" floor that chirps when you walk on it, only cool thing about the castle) and Shrines (Jeian and Fushimi Inari). The Fushimi Inari Shrine was really neat because it had 1,000s of Torii's you walk under going all the way up into the mountains. Jimmy made it to the top, but I had to stop mid-way. I didn't think it was good for the baby. Everyone who goes to Kyoto loves it. I personally find it hard to get around on foot (it is really spread out). They make you pay for toilet paper at the public restrooms in the temples and shrines (that you pay to get into), and their transportation system sucks. I am much more of a Tokyo girl😊
Jimmy and I had a blast together. It was such a treat to get to spend 5 days traveling with
one of my brothers. He made it all the more enjoyable because of his knowledge of the history of the 2nd World War. We complimented each other well. I had only read or dreamt of most of these places in Japan. And it was really cool to see parts of this island that very few foreigners take the time to visit.
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