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Published: August 15th 2010
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Thursday (7/15/10) was a awesome, long, at times stressful day. We started the day by waking up at 4:15 a.m. to get ready to leave. Our bullet train left Tokyo at 6:58 a.m. so we had to get to Tokyo. We planned on getting to the train station in Yokosuka around 5:15 a.m. which we made. Unfortunately our planning did not go as planned. We accidentally got on a local train to Shinagowa which is a train station in Tokyo which was were the bullet train was leaving from. The local train is the slowest train because it stops at every stop along the way to Tokyo. Needless to say instead of the 45 minutes we planned on it taking, it took an hour and a half. We had planned on taking the express so that we would be able to make it in that 45 mins. But because we took the local we missed our bullet train. It was really frustrating missing the train, we all were in bad moods and getting on each others nerves. We ended up taking another train that was just as fast, but stopped at more stops so it was called the super express. It only took about an hour and a half longer to get to Hiroshima than it would have with the bullet train, and we did have to change trains once which we would not of had to do.
We got to Hiroshima around 12:30 p.m. We changed our plans on what we were going to do to make it easier for us. We took at trolley to the A -dome. A Japanese mad helped us find which trolley to go to, we must have just looked lost because we did not even ask him. The A-dome was really easy to find once we got on the trolley because it took right to it. The dome was really neat. It was crazy to think that the building stood after the bomb was dropped because the bomb was almost dropped right over it. Around the A-dome is the Peace Memorial Park which was built after the bomb was dropped to remember those that died and also to promote peace around the world. There are different memorials around the park. The one that we visited was the Children’s memorial which was built for all the children that died or was affected in the blast. Under the monument was a stone that had a Japanese inscription which translated to “This is our cry. This is our prayer. For building peace in this world”. Around the memorial was art that children from different schools had made. Most of the art said peace. Across the street was the main memorial which when looked inside you could see the A-dome. It was neat to see. We went to the Peace memorial museum next. It had a lot of Hiroshima history before the bomb was dropped. I learned a few things such as that Hiroshima was a big military town which I did not know. I always assumed it had something to do with military because of the bom, but I was never sure. It was interesting to read about their intake on why we bombed them. There were times were I thought that they made it sound like we just randomly chose them bomb. I also got the feeling that they feel we did not thing it all the way through. I guess though it the bomb would have happened to us we would have some of the same feelings. They had pictures of what they town looked like before and after the bomb which was also interesting. Another thing that I thought was interesting was that we had 4 towns in mind on which one we were going to bomb and that we chose Hiroshima because there was no prisoner of war camps there. Another city that was said that they considered was Yokohama which is a town that is really close to where we are staying; it is also where I watched the baseball game. The museum had some graphic things inside of it as well; including wax people after the bomb which had melted skin and clothes hanging from their body. The museum also had different objects to show how hot the blast was including glass ink bottles that melted together. The museum was not as big as I thought it would be, but it was still worth going to because there was a lot of information that was really interesting to me.
After the museum we decided to find the Hiroshima Castle; which had been rebuilt after the bomb was dropped. On our way we got to walk around the old baseball stadium for the team in Hiroshima. We also saw the new one which is absolutely huge! It was not as long of walk to the castle as we though which was awesome. When we first got to it we were really disappointed because all you saw was the gate. We thought that was all that there was, but decided anyway to walk in and check it out. It turned out that the castle was up a hill and could not be seen because of trees. When looking around I thought it was crazy because here you were looking at something that was historic and across the street were huge tall buildings. So once we figured out that there was a cool castle we explored the area. We first went into the gate wall and checked that area out. It was cool, it explained a little about the castle and why it was built. After that we went up to the castle. The castle is five stories high, and is pretty sweet. It looked really Japanese if that makes any sense. When we went inside of course it did not look like it would have because of the rebuilding. They turned it into a museum instead. We did do some trying on of clothing such as a samuri outfit. We walked around all the way to the top of the castle. After we visited the castle we went to the shrine that was also on the castle grounds of course! That was pretty neat to see, but it looked a lot like all the other shrines.
After the castle we walked to the shopping area of Hiroshima called Hondori street. It was kind of like a mall that just had the street as the main walk way. On our walk through the street we found a place to eat that had Okonomi-yaki which is like the Japanese pancake. It had noodles, cooked cabbage, what every you want for your topping (I had seafood which included squid, shrimp, and scallops) and on the top cooked egg with a bunch of sauce on it. It looked scary, but was amazing. We were told to try it by a couple of people including the information guides about Hiroshima. The really interesting thing was that they cooked it and then brought it to your table which had a hot plate built into it which is where they put it. After eating we walked around the shops some more. When we got to the end of the street we decided it was time to find our hotel. We knew the general area where it was, so we pulled out our map to figure out the direction we needed to go. It took about two minutes for someone to come up to us and ask us if she could help us. She was so nice. We told her that we needed to get to the train station since that was around were the hotel was. She walked with us and asked us questions while we walked. She then made a phone call, I just thought she was calling her work to tell them she would be late. Well she was calling her work, but if was so they would get a car ready for us! She worked for the Tokyo -Inn Hotels and she got us a car for free to take us to the train station! It was so nice of her. So we found out we traveled a little further than we thought because we were about ten minutes from the train station driving. It was also very helpful because we saw our hotel on the way there. When we chose this hotel we were told that it was right by the train station, which it was not! We probably would not have found it if it were not for the ride. It was about a 8 minute walk to the hotel. The hotel was nice; the rooms were very small though. We each got our won beds which I was not expecting. We each got a robe and slippers which we were not used to! We all then went to bed early because of our early departure plans the next day.
Friday (7/16/10) we woke up super early, as in 4:45 a.m.!!! We woke up early because we wanted to get to Miyajima Island early during low tide so that we would be able to walk out to the Ohtorii Gate while it was not surrounded by water. We left the hotel around 5:00 and got to the train station by 5:15. When we got to the train station we found out that it was not even open yet! So we had to wait till 5:20 to be able to get in to the train station. To top the morning off we found that the train that we needed did not leave till 5:55 a.m. so we had to wait for awhile until we could get on the first train. The train ride did not take that long about 25 minutes to where the ferry would take us to the island. We missed the ferry by about 2 minutes so we had to wait for the next one. This turned out to be alright because I deperetly needed coffee; so we went to seven eleven and got a cold coffee! By that time there was a little time left be fore the ferry left. Once we got on the ferry it did not take long for us to see the gate. IT was so gorgeous; there was fog around the island so you could see everything with the fog around it! The gate stuck out like a sore thumb because of its bright red color. It did not take long for us to get to the island. On the Ferry we were mostly with workers that worked on the island because it was so early; this turned out to be a good thing because we did not get other people in our pictures. When we got there we wanted to go straight to the gate so we could walk all the way out to it. We were interrupted by a deer that walked right up to us. It actually scared us a little! When we got to the gate it took us a while to figure out how to get to the middle of the area to get pictures because there was wet seaweed everywhere and we were wearing our tennis shoes. Once we figured out how to get out there it was so sweet! We got to go under the gate which was absolutely huge! We found out that the gate is not in the ground at all because it is stabilized by just it’s weight! We got a tone of pictures! We also picked up some coins that were on the ground for souvenirs for later. After we got of our pictures and adventures done by the gate we walked around the island for awhile. We saw a lot of deer and eventually got the courage to go up and pet them. While we were walking around we found another shrine and all the shops that eventually we would find had a lot of soveniers for us to look through. We then sat down around the edge of the island and had a snack. After our snack we started to walk around again; while we were walking I found a sweet piece of drift wood which I decided to keep and maybe do something cool with when I get back home. We walked to the five story Pagoda which was a building that was five stories. It was a long walk up the steps to get there, but it was totally worth it! Each story had the Japanese corner roofing on them which made it neat! By this time all the shops had been opened so we started to look around all of them. A couple of the shops had the maple leaf treat makers, so we got to see how they were made. After we went through most all of the shops, we decided to walk on the nature walk for a little while. It ended up we took a wrong turn so we were on the walk for a very short while. Also because of the mix up we walked down a set of stairs that we thing said off limits, but the sign was in Japanese so how could we know! After that adventure we went to a couple more shops and found another shrine that was called the two story pagoda. By that time we were hungry so we found a place to eat within all of the souvenir shops. I had a fried pork curry which was really good and just what I needed. I love the rice here and really want a rice maker when I get home so I can make a tone of sticky rice! When then went to the main shrine of the island. This shrine was also built over the water (this is the main reason we waited to go to it because we wanted the water to be under it before we went inside) behind the Ohtorii Gate. The shrine was like most other shrines besides the built over water part. We got to see the Ohtorii gate straight on and by this time the water had surrounded it and again it was beautiful! After the shrine we went back to all the shops and bought the things that we wanted to buy. We also got some desert/ice cream. I got what is called coolish which is ice cream in a bag (it was blueberry flavor) which was amazing! On our way back to the ferry we walked past a oyster stand and being the seafood lover that I am decided to try one. The information that we had gotten before the trip said the oysters in Hiroshima were known to be really good. The man at the stand was really nice and gave me two for the price of one and of course they were really good! He even let me keep the shells! We then took the ferry back to the mainland. We left really early so that we made sure we made our train this time. We made it in plenty of time for our bullet train. It took us awhile to figure out where to stand so we got on the right car for our assigned seats. We waited around for about 40 minutes for the train, but the train was on time just like everything in Japan! It was such a relief to make it on our train (Shinkasen bullet train). The train ride took about 4 ½ hours to Shinagowa station which is by Tokyo. We then took the keiku train line Yokosuka. We got to base around 10 p.m. and went straight to bed so we could wake up for work the next day.
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