Today was dedicated to getting to and seeing Hiroshima. We had an 8:20am train to Hiroshima so met at the lobby of the hotel at 7:30. With the quick subway ride to Kyoto station and a bit of scouting we were able to determine what we needed to do in short order. We also spent a couple minutes getting Brien a ticket to Tokyo for Sunday morning. With the spare time we went to the Lotteria and I had coffee and a banana muffin and the others each had an orange juice.
We caught the shinkansen no problem and the ride to Hiroshima was about 2 hours long. Fortunately on the way out it was a direct ride without any changes and we were in green car all the way. The ride was pleasant and we passed Himeji which we had visited on the last trip and I was able to see the castle in the distance from the approach to the Himeji stop.
The weather was definitely less overcast though maybe a touch cooler than short sleeve temperatures. There was no rain or even the slightest look of rain on the day.
When we arrived in Hiroshima we immediately visited the tourist office and got maps and directions to the A-Bomb Dome and the Peace Museum and Park. They suggested we take the street car there. The car was crowded but we manage it well enough. It had to stop not only for the designated stops but also for red traffic lights making the trip feel extremely long.
We arrived at the A-Bomb Dome stop and exited with a little bit of a todo I won't explain on the blog. The dome is a very sobering sight. It is the last visual remnants of what happened in the city in 1945. By this point over 60 years later the rest of the city has been reclaimed but the dome has been preserved as a reminder. The peace park surrounds the dome and there were plenty of cherry trees around in slightly later bloom than what is in Kyoto making the park a very pretty site to see. We did not hover the entire park but there were obviously Japanese people having their Sakura picnics here and there about the grounds. Through the park we made it to the Peace Museum. Entryis 50 yen which is a bit more than 50 cents right now. Ronni and I rented the audio guides which were about 3 bucks apiece. They were nice to have because in some respects it reduced the need to read when you couldn't see with all the people in the way but the narrator was slow to me and I ended up reading more than I listened throughout the museum. The museum itself was incredibly neutral towards the US and Americans. Iwas very surprised by this. There is not doubt there was a lot of commentary on the horrors of what the atomic bomb did to the city and there are some very disturbing visuals and depressing stories throughout the museum but the horrors are not directed at individuals or the US or anything beyond the idea of nuclear war in general. It was a very interesting museum and I am very glad we visited it. It is difficult to really understand how great and terrible a thing it was until you see it for yourself.
From the museum we walked up to the shopping street and found a restaurant to eat in. The theme was Italian again and I had a penne with a hot pepper and bacon red sauce. It was not really all the spicy but it was tasty and I had a couple beers to go along. Brien and Ronni both had burger dishes that looked reasonably good. I had a Ice Tiramisu for dessert that was both tasty and enjoyable.
After lunch we had a better understanding of the scale of the map and chose to walk to Hiroshima Castle. The visit was free however only the outer walls have been rebuilt. The castle was destroyed by the atomic bomb and they have the foundations of the various buildings marked off on the inside. The outer wall area is a replica and you can walk through it and see some of the style of how things were done much in the way Kanazawa castle worked. It was nota particularly long visit but it was nice. We also visited the temple next door which at some point I will have to dig out of a map. There was a wedding going on as it was Saturday. The party was using moderately traditional dress except the bride was in white as opposed to the traditional Japanese black.
After the castle we walked back to Hiroshima Station. On the map it appeared to be a shorter distance than the time of the walk seemed to take so I wonder if the scale on the map was accurate. In any event we made it in a teeny bit longer than I expected and upped our train trip back to Kyoto from 5pm to 4:15pm. We had to ride in standard car rather than green car. It wa very crowded but we were on a Silence Car so there was not a ton of noise. This brought us to Shin-Osaka where we exchanged to a green car ride that took about 15 minutes to Kyoto. Brien wasn't feeling well so we hopped the subway back to the hotel and Ronni and I ate at the Chinese restaurant in the hotel. I had cashew chicken this time, which was supposed to be spicy but really wasn't to me. It was tasty and enjoyable though. I would advise trying the place out if ever you are in Kyoto and crave Chinese food. It is called Saien. I am still in love with the waitress who would send me to hell or jail, whichever came first. After that we split up for the night and I came up to the room to write this and have my other beer I bought the night before, a Yebisu black beer that turned out to be very enjoyable.
While writing this up I watched a Japanese game show where the contestants were playing curling like in the winter Olympics but instead the stones were people with curling stone shaped hats that were riding on slippery disks. They had a plastic mat laid out an they had put soapy water on it. The effect was rather unusual as the varioius "stones" carreened down the course and into each other. I wouldn't quite have appreciated it so much if it was not for the hats they were wearing which were priceless. They appeared to have a hard time deciding if they scored if they fell off their disks or not. Eventually it appeared that if they fell off they did not.
I have posted the pictures for today here.
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