Where we did more milling about trying to decipher the signage. Fortunately, the images rolled over to English every so often. That's us, the Nozomi 3 at 8:27 which, as shown, is DELAYED (!) by 5 minutes. Gasp. We later were told that the typhoon felled a huge tree across the tracks somewhere. I think the actual delay was about 15 minutes in the end. They allowed 90 seconds for the offloading passengers to exit and for us to get on. Scramble time! We had assigned seats, so once on it was no sweat. The trip down was smooth and, of course, fast. Loni had no complaint about pressure in the tunnels, which was a problem on the French TGV that we took years ago. The station at Hiroshima was quite nice with a lot of reasonable restaurants to choose from. We'll eat there on the return trip tonight.
Our first stop of the day will be by ferry to Miyajima ("Shrine") Island with its iconic torii gate sitting on the tidal flats and the Itsukushima Shrine which, if the tides are right (they weren't), seems to float on water, which is its main claim to fame.
That's the torii gate with the water just lapping at its base. The ants are people. The Shrine lies directy behind it on the left, high and dry. After disembarking, we walked through the tourist shopping area of the town (natch) to get to the Shrine at the far end. We checked out possible lunch stops along the way. A big deal here are the "wild" deer that are allowed to roam freely. A little too freely, as one tried to snatch something from Chuck. Back in the day, they were quite sacred and the penalty for injuring one was beheading. Yikes! Lots of folks walked out to see the torii gate up close and personal at low tide.
Once we got to the Shrine it was pleasant but not spectacular. We just got unlucky with the tide, and it was not so magical sitting on a mud flat. It consists of a series of buildings connected by covered walkways. It was started in 1168 by Taira no Kiyomori, allegedly the most powerful man in Japan during the end of the Heian period, to be used as a family shrine. I wonder how much of the original remains?
Some of the interior rooms were quite nice, especially the one with the big drum.
Ready to eat, we returned to the shopping street on our own and sussed out a likely candidate. Again, thank goodness for pictures of the food or we'd be lost. From this humble spot Loni had asparagus wrapped with bacon and I got octopus and spring onion (both in wraps). A couple of Asahi "Dry Zero's" (non-alcoholic) and we were good to go. I really liked the Asahi's and wish they would export them to the U.S. I've looked, but no go.
We dallied among the shops but found nothing we liked other than stuff for $500 and up. Nope. Back to the ferry and the 8 minute ride across the bay to the mainland. One last shot of the damp torii. [Note: as I type this, I read that the torii was covered in scaffolding and tarps beginning in 2019 for maintenance; glad we got there before that happened.]
It took another hour on the bus to get to the Hiroshima Peace Park. We started at the museum, which was only half open due to renovations. That was plenty. As you can imagine, the images and artifacts and first-hand accounts are truly harrowing.
If only every world so-called "leader" could be forced to spend a couple of days here contemplating the realities of war, we just maybe could avoid getting into more of them. We can hope. The overall tone of the museum was of peace and forgiveness, and there was no avoidance of Japan's own role in that sorry history. I felt much less self-conscious here than I did when I was in the Navy and visited the Nagasaki peace park. Of course, that was 1969 and not so many American tourists then.
Outside, here's the main plaza, viewing through the memorial arch at the "atomic dome" in the background, the only building to remain standing near ground zero.
Chuck and Alice took a breather to contemplate the Dome.
Let's hope the kids take away more than memories of a pleasant day outside.
We were scheduled for the 19:17 train back to Kyoto, with three stops. We had time to eat at the station, which had a huge 3-story food court. We had enough trouble choosing among the offerings on floor one. We were fascinated by the open-kitchen floor show at one place that seemed to be making some sort of exotic fritata with a lot of theatricality.
The thing was called an Okonomoyaki, or something like that. An egg pancake filled with chopped cabbage and your choice of additionals. I chose squid, but ended up with shrimp (no complaint), and Loni chose spring onions. It's topped with some brown sauce and finished with a fried egg. Trust me, it tasted great. The hardest part was trying to figure out how to order from the machine posted out front. We were saved by a local eager to practice her English. Chuck wandered off in search of a McDonald's, but no joy, so he got a hamburger at some stand. Too bad for him.
The trip back was uneventful save for the gang of school kids who mob-boarded along with us. They quieted down, though, and we dozed most of the way back, getting to the hotel quite late. A good day!
No comments:
Post a Comment