Hiroshima

This past weekend, Dan and I took a trip to Hiroshima. It was an amazing city. We enjoyed our first shinkansen ride(bullet train) and stayed in a traditional Japanese Inn. The Inn was a lot like a hostel, but with tetami floors in the rooms that you couldn’t wear your shoes on. It was a short walk from our Inn to the Peace park, which was nice and convenient.

The first night, we found our hotel and walked to the main shopping and dining area. There we ate some Japanese-Italian(the Japanese seem to really like Italian restaurants). Then we headed out for a drink at a fancy sports bar. The next day was devoted mainly to the sights. We started with the Peace Memorial Museum. It was super informative and fair. I thought it really showed both sides and didn’t blame as much as ask the question- “how can this be avoided in the future?”. There were lots of before and after pictures, which gave a good idea of exactly what happened. I was glad that Dan made me read the book Hiroshima this past summer, because a lot of things made more sense with that background. From there, we explored the Peace Park, the monuments, and the A-Bomb Dome. The Dome is crazy to see in person.

We went and had lunch at a curry place and then went to the Hiroshima Contemporary Art Museum. We chose that one over a couple others because it had some art inspired by the bombing. After the museum we were ready to be done with the sights and relax. We went for a drink and met a couple US marines and a very friendly bartender who studied in England for a while. Later we ate at an Izakaya- it’s kind of like a bar, but they serve lots of different Japanese food in small portions(almost like tapas).

The next day we found a place that served an egg and toast breakfast(not common over here). We were excited about that and then headed over to the Hiroshima castle (a rebuilt one, since we destroyed the first one). After that we walked over to the Shukkei-en garden, which means shrunken garden(It too was destroyed and rebuilt). It was beautiful and right after we walked in an old man approached us and asked if he could give us a tour. He walked us around and explained what things were and why they were there. He was very friendly and often referred to his notes so he didn’t miss telling us anything. It was interesting because it's a type of garden that was made with a formula. All of the gardens that are this type have certain types of bridges, bamboo, green tea, four small rice plots,a central pond, a waterfall, a mimi-shore, and islands. They day we were there, there happened to be a musical performance in the large tea house, so as we walked around, we heard some faint traditional music in the background. Very pleasant.

Sunday evening we headed home and decided we want to go back to Hiroshima.

Here we are on our first Shinkansen train ride. We loved it.

Here is the Peace Park Memorial with the cenotaph that contains a list of more than 200,000 A-bomb victims. It is out in front of the Peace Memorial Museum. This woman was cleaning up.

This is the flame that is to remain burning until there are no more nuclear weapons on earth. You can see it through the memorial arch.

The A-bomb Dome

A before and after picture of the A-bomb Dome.

An interesting view of the dome.

The cool stairway at the Hiroshima contemporary art museum. All the things on the stairs are fountains.

Hiroshima-jo castle

Huge koi in the moat at the castle.

Here we are in the Shukkei-en Garden.

This is the nice gentleman who guided us around for an hour.

Here I am relaxing after the tour.

Welcome Dinner

Last Tuesday the board of education threw us a welcome dinner. We used our house because it's huge. They got sushi and pizza for the occasion. We talked about our positions and the cultural differences. It was really nice.

Floating

Last Sunday, Dan and I were picked up by a teacher from his school(Fukada-sensei) and her husband and taken on quite an adventure. They picked us up at 8:30 in the AM and took us to Otsu for the Otsu Festival. This festival involved a huge parade of 13 elaborate traditional floats. Each one was an enormous old wooden wagon thing and it represented one of the 13 spirits. They each had a wooden doll(kind of like a marianette) in the front. The floats made periodic scheduled stops where they would have the dolls move and perform for the crowd. There was lots of traditional music begin played on the floats and sometimes they would throw these rice sweets out to the crowd. It was very festive.

From there, our day only got better. Around 11:30, The Fukadas took us around the lake to there yacht club for lunch and a boat ride. There we feasted with some of the people that Mr. Fukada sails with(and has since college-everyone here has a hobby that they have done since college and that is how they met there old friends). The food was awesome. There was sushi, tempura, noodles, rice, oden- soup with tons of stuff in it, different kinds of tofu, and some other stuff. So- we ate and then headed out on the sail boat. It was great- we saw the whole area from the lake. We were out for about 2 and 1/2 hours and cruised around the southern end of Biwaco(lake Biwa). Everyone was super nice and they invited us back for a race. We are not sure if that means we will be on the boat for it.

Otsu Festival

The Fukadas

Musicians on a float

Dan and I being spoiled on Lake Biwa.

The crew

They let Dan steer the boat.

A view of Otsu

I really enjoyed myself.

Minamiyama(yama means mountain)

Hello again. Dan and I went on a bike ride to Minamiyama, which is a mountian that we can see from our town. It's a town over from us in Yasu and apparently looks closer than it is. All in all it was a nice bike ride even though it was longer than we had anticipated. It took so long that we didn't have much time for hiking once we got there, but it was fun anyway.

This is a view of Minamiyama from a distance. It's nickname is omi-Fuji, because it has a Fuji-like shape.

This is us on the mountain, posing for a timer picture.

This is the bike I ride- it's called the "Bounty Hunter" and it's got a mind of it's own. Sometimes it just decides to switch gears on a whim. Also there are three old locks locked to it with no keys. The bike Dan rides is newer and safer. I like my bounty hunter.