Hiroshima, part 2

After my visit to the Peace Memorial Park, I checked into my hostel. To my surprise, they had Japanese-style dorm rooms... have a look:

After that, I wandered around the city some more and found that there are very nice cherry blossom vistas in Hiroshima, too:

The next day, I took a ferry to Miyajima island. The most famous attraction there is Itsukushima shrine that seems to be floating in the water during high tide.

When I got there, the tide was already on its way out, so I got a good look at how this floating is accomplished:

Apparently, the date of my visit coincided with a festival held at the shrine. As far as I could tell, the main part of the festival was that there were Noh plays being held on the floating stage in the shrine.

Noh play on the floating stage in Itsukushima shrine

The play consisted of lots of chanting supported by some drums and a flute. I didn't stay very long because I didn't understand anything, but there were quite a few people sitting in the audience.


My next stop was the Buddhist temple Daisho-in. The temple had a very nice atmosphere, consisting of several buildings on a hillside. In one part of its garden, they have collected numerous small Buddha status - one from each of the 88 temples in the Shikoku pilgrimage.

Right next to the temple entrance, there is the beginning of one of the three paths leading up Mt. Misen. It takes a little less than 90 minutes to walk to the top at 535 meters above sea level. The reward? Stunning views of Hiroshima and the islands surrounding Miyajima! Though, admittedly, it would have been even more stunning if it hadn't been a little foggy. But still, I enjoyed the view a lot :-)

For the way down, I chose the lazy option: there is a ropeway leading up the mountain that removes about three quarters of the hike. Near the ropeway station, I found these signs:

Apparently, they have a few problems with monkey-tourist interaction. I didn't see any monkeys, however (and not that many tourists, either).

Before going back to Osaka on the next day, I had enough time to pay a visit to the lovely Shukkeien garden. Very beautiful cherry blossoms (and tons of other flowers, too).

Shukkeien garden

Right next to Shukkeien garden, there is the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum. I really enjoyed the artwork displayed there, which included some very interesting pieces from Max Ernst's Histoire Naturelle (do a Google image search and have a close look at his technique!) and, of course, Dali's Dream of Venus.

On the way to the garden, I noticed some people staring into the sky... so I turned to see if there was anything interesting - and there was:

Great halo around the sun

Hiroshima, part 1: Peace Memorial Park

After I had been to Nagasaki a couple of weeks ago, I had to visit Hiroshima as well, of course.

The first thing I did when I got there was to visit the Peace Memorial Park. The first thing you see when you get off the tram is the A-bomb dome - the untouched ruins of a building that stood near the bomb's hypocenter and that was one of the very few buildings that were not entirely destroyed. Wikipedia has a photograph of how the building looked originally. Apparently, there are three main reasons why part of the building remained standing: first, it was very close to the hypocenter, so most of the blast came from straight above, and not at an angle. Second, the many windows gave the blast an easy exit out of the building so that it didn't have to take down the walls. And third, the middle part's cylindrical shape is actually a very stable shape.

Atomic bomb dome

How do I know all this? Well, as I approached the A-bomb dome, a volunteer guide offered to take me around for free. She said she does it to improve her English (which I thought was pretty good already), and her knowledge of everything connected to the atomic bomb was really impressive.

Paper cranes in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

After the short tour I continued through the peace park. At one point, I saw many glass cases, such as the one above, filled with the same colorful ribbons that I had already seen in Nagasaki. Only this time, I stopped to take a closer look - and noticed that they are not ribbons at all! Instead, they are many, many folded paper cranes fit into each other. These chains of paper cranes are ubiquitous in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - pretty impressive work by all the people who folded them!

Cenotaph in the peace park

The cenotaph in the peace park is aligned with the A-bomb dome, the peace flame, and the peace museum such that they are all on one line. A side note about the peace flame (it's visible in the picture, but you need to look closely!): it has been burning continuously since it was first lit in 1964, and the goal is to keep it burning until all atomic weapons on Earth have been dismantled. If time travel was possible, I'd be really curious as to the date when this happens. I fear it is a long time away...

My final stop in the peace park was the peace museum. The exhibit that moved me most was a set of two models of central Hiroshima - one showing houses, roads and bridges before the bombing, and the other showing the same region after. Have a look for yourself:

It still blows my mind when I think about how humans are capable of doing that to other humans.

Sweets (5)

I saved the "special" sweets for the last post in this series. These are mostly souvenirs, which you can easily identify by their elaborate packaging. Bringing souvenir sweets from a trip is what the Japanese do instead of sending postcards. So there are plenty of shops selling these sweets around sights, train stations, and airports.

These are sweets are apparently only sold in Kyoto. Slightly sweet dough triangles, available with various fillings (this was sakura - cherry blossoms). Nice, but not sweet enough to be my favorite ;-)

A souvenir from the Tokyo sky tree. The taste is pretty much what you'd expect, but the packaging is a little over the top...

Cute packaging, huh? The bear heads were very good, but compared to the size of the box, there were not enough of them in there ;-)

Another souvenir from Tokyo Disneyland. Basically standard chocolate in a cute shape - wasting an incredible amount of packaging material...

This is... NOT a birthday cake. It may look like one, but it is, in fact, a Christmas cake. Never heard of Christmas cakes? Well, me neither. But apparently they are hugely popular in Japan.

Sweets (4)

These seem to be very popular, but intended rather as a meal replacement than as a snack. The taste is quite bland - I don't really get why people would eat these instead of a real meal, when there are so many take-out options available.

Dried strips of some kind of fish. These are sold in lots of different colors and shapes. I didn't really like them, however...

These are probably the sweets with the blandest taste I've ever encountered. Not good.

Seems I kept all the bad sweets for the end... but wait! There is one more post coming up ;-)

Sweets (3)

As I later found out, these are not intended as snacks that you just grab and eat. Instead, they are used as a kind of edible plate during festivals, and usually come with a heap of noodles or something on top.

Peanuts. With various crusts. Very delicious!

Well, it says so on the packaging, and they tasted like it, too: standard Baumkuchen (or pyramid cake, according to my dictionary)

I was so damn sure that these would be sweet. But, alas, I was wrong. Damn! I didn't really like them... maybe because they didn't meet my expectations?

These are snacks rather than sweets, but incredibly delicious! I ate more than one package during my time here...

Sweets (2)

Consistency and taste were similar to doughnuts, but not super sweet.

As you might derive from the word "squid snack" on the packaging, these were in fact not sweet. But delicious nonetheless! And, compared to potato chips, very low in fat.

Some kind of potato chips, I think. Only... sweet.

These had a slight lemony taste, very good.

They may not look like it, but they tasted excactly like chocolate-covered puffed rice. Not what I was expecting at the time... but a very nice surprise. Mmmh!

In a plane with infants...

Today, I had the opportunity to do a first-hand observation of the difference between parents who are well-prepared for a flight with their infant and those who are not.

On my flight to Tokyo, there were two couples sitting just across the aisle from me, each with an infant in pre-walking age. During most of the flight, everything was fine - just until that moment when the plane started descending.

The smart (well-prepared) parents had a bottle ready and kept feeding their kid until the plane had landed. Smooth.

The other couple didn't do anything, and - surprise, surprise - their kid started crying due to ear pain very soon. Their reaction can only be described as helpless: first they simply held the child and tried to calm it down, but with every passing minute their efforts became more hectic. Patting it on the back, lifting it up, stroking its head, having it look out the window, patting its back a little faster and harder, etc etc.

I couldn't help but wonder - didn't they think of doing a simple google search (something along the lines of "flying with kids") before the flight? And also, why don't airlines prepare some hints for parents who indicate they will be traveling with an infant? That way, a lot of ear pain could be prevented - not only in the kids' ears, but also in the ears of their fellow travelers...