HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR

September 5, 2018  Busy day today.  Ono-san preached all day yesterday how we couldn't be late for the Shinkansen ("new trunk line") bullet train to Hiroshima.  Japan runs on time!  Well, almost always.  She ordered 6am wakeup calls for everyone.  Fine by us, but I suspect a few groans among the group.  Real omelets at breakfast, so all was good.  We all milled about the lobby at 7:30, glancing at the news.  3,000 people stranded at the now- underwater Osaka airport, and will have to be rescued by boat as the bridge was clobbered by the vessel Houn (!) Maru. Short trip on the bus to the station.

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!

WE GET WET

NOTE: I just reviewed my last post and can't figure out how the formatting got so messed up, with pics down the left and text to the right (and not synced properly either).  That's not the way I composed it.  Hopefully, this one won't go the same way.

Tuesday, Sept 4, 2018    Off to Kyoto in the path of Typhoon Jebi, with ominous warnings of the worst storm to hit in a long time.  The trip by bus will take about five hours with a couple of stops.  We tanked up at the buffet breakfast in case we get stranded somewhere.  This was typical of our breakfast fare.  Excellent pastries, some fruit and juice, pretty good sausage, the weirdly undercooked but still tasty bacon, and the runny eggs that just might have been out of a package.  They tasted good, so maybe not.  Strange texture, though, reminding me of an ostrich egg we had scrambled once.



The first part of our trip was along the coast of the Sea of Japan, and the weather was quite sunny and pleasant.  But, we soon started encountering ominous clouds.  We stopped for pit breaks and to get some gedunk fare.  Actually, the stuff they sell at the road stops seems quite high quality, although I wasn't tempted due to the prices.  Most everything they sell is packaged like a fancy gift, even for mundane items like pound cake.  After a while, the rain and wind started in earnest.

In the expected path of Jebi, all schools were closed and trains were not running.  Some roads were shut down, but ours were fairly good.  That said, the wind gusts were moving the bus around too much for my comfort and our excellent driver finally pulled off the main highway to a smaller, slower secondary road and we finished our drive into Kyoto on the same.  Our itinerary had us doing outside touring today, but the resourceful Yoshiko spent a long time on her phone as we drove along, and arranged to change to today our indoor activity that was scheduled for tomorrow.  So, we pulled up outside Marumasu Nishumuraya, a fabric stenciling atelier, to try our hands.  Unfortunately, Jedi was howling overhead, and the rather lengthy dash from the bus to the entrance got us thoroughly soaked.  After shedding all our rain gear, we initially settled into a large, windowed room with workbenches.  Almost immediately, the lights flickered and went out several times and the walls and roof seemed to be creaking from the typhoon overhead.  They were concerned that the windows might blow in, so we all moved to an adjacent room with no windows.  We got to work on our stencils.  Loni and I both did fishes, but Chuck did a very nifty one with two penguins which even impressed the staff.  We were encouraged to wear aprons to protect our clothes, and by the time I got to the box for mine, well . . .

The finished products.  Very serious artist's penguins, my fish and coral, and Loni's koi.

We wrapped our masterpieces and donned our gear for the run back to the bus.  If anything, the rain and wind was even heavier that when we arrived.  Our pants and shoes got sopped.  And, once again, my galoshes are resting quietly in my suitcase.

We got to the Westin Miyako Hotel in one piece and rested up a while before venturing out with the whole group for dinner at what Yoshiko called a tapas restaurant, but billed in our itinerary as a yakitori (skewered chicken) joint.  We again got wet, although not as bad as earlier.  The restaurant was packed and noisy with what seemed to be the iconic salary-men's night out.  Lots of drinking, shouting, and singing.  We had to split up into small groups and into little rooms not bigger than the table.  Ours was on the third floor, so a long way from the kitchen.  Even longer waits for service, so we were getting a bit glum, but the beer helped and the food, when it finally dribbled in, was pretty good.

We had pork/shrimp balls, asparagus wrapped in bacon, salad with tofu, mystery meat on a skewer, shrimp on a skewer, and ice cream.  The rain lessened, so we got back to the hotel only slightly wet.  The hotel seems to be 3 or 4 buildings connected by long hallways that go uphill and downhill.  Took forever to get to our rooms.  Luckily, one of the group discovered a shortcut that was not intuitive, so we saved some steps the next day.

We checked out the damage from Jebi.  The worst of it passed right over Kyoto, which lies just to the right of the indent cove in the map below.  The bottom right pic shows a freighter that broke loose from its moorings and crashed into the only bridge connecting Osaka International (which lies on a very low, man-made island) with the mainland.  The bridge was shut down for over a day, the airport was under two feet of water, thousands of would-be fliers stranded at the airport, and utter chaos with canceled flights.  Many in our group were due to fly out of Osaka in a couple of days (not us) and it was a mess trying to rebook flights.  More on that later.  Tomorrow, Hiroshima Mon Amour.

THERE'S GOLD IN THEM THAR BOXES!

Monday, September 3
Today we're on our own for lunch and dinner, so we tanked up at the very good hotel breakfast.  We are staying the day in Kanazawa, so no early bus ride.  After a leisurely feed, we got on the bus with the intrepid Otska-san at the wheel for the short, although tortuous, ride over to the 25-acre Kenroku-En -- the Garden of Six Qualities.  These are the gardens attached to the former Kanazawa Castle, which no longer exists.

Your genial guide with map. This place had endless beautiful views, but this was one of the nicest.  The bridge is a very popular spot for nearly every visitor to pose upon, and I was lucky to get this shot off before the adjacent hordes descended.

 A fast shuffle and we beat the horde.  Hey, we're tourists!

It takes a lot of work to keep places like this looking good.  With tight spaces like these, it's all manual labor.  We have no idea what these guys were sweeping in the river.

Couple of locals taking in the scene.  They only met 48 years ago!

Random scenes.  On this hot, humid day, all this shade was mighty welcome.

On most of the Collette tours we've taken, they throw in some special things that are out of the ordinary sightseeing.  We get to do one today.  Back on the bus and we drove to Kanazawa Katani for a lesson in decorating lacquer boxes with gold leaf.  Naturally, given my nature, I was dubious, but we all were won over.  We tried to listen closely to the instructions, but the accented English was pretty strong.  They pretty much pantomimed everything and it was just fine.  The first step is to pick out a stencil pattern from the boxes.

I chose a crane, along with a dot to represent the sun (not shown).  The first step is to peel the backing from the stencil and affix it to the lid of the box.  Then you take these absurdly thin sheets of gold foil and drape them over the stencil.  Using the little padded bag, you sort of mash-spread the gold onto the lid.  The instructors then took them away to do some magic to remove the excess glue and gold and fix the remainder with lacquer.  The result is quite lovely. 

The thin gold leaf was very tricky to work with.  The guy next to Chuck in the pic below had his take flight when a very small gust of wind blew in.  It floated up over his head and landed on Chuck's shoulder.  Don't know what the gals are laughing about;  they didn't share.  Loni's box came out nice.  Everyone was having a good time.  Kudos, Collette.

Next stop was the local fish market which smelled like the sea, not at all "fishy."  The place was huge, but we were only in the retail section, not the larger commercial one.  Yoshiko said that housewives come daily here to pick up something for dinner.  No weekly shopping.

Afterwards, the group split up for an afternoon of free time.  We went back to the hotel to dump our stuff, then headed out to walk, in the heat, a mile or so to what was billed as a Ninja Temple, complete with secret doors and rooms, and with a live-action performance.  After a few wrong turns, we found it, only to be told at the box office that it was by prior reservation only, and even though it was not full, we couldn't just buy tickets there.  Bah!    After deciphering the vagaries of the 7-11 ATM, to assuage our disappointment, we had to stop at the "German Bakery" along the way for fresh juices and a lemon muffin for Loni and a cream puff for me.  Take that, ninjas!

C&A opted to cab it back to the hotel, but we decided to walk and take in the Kanazawa Castle Park.  All that remains of the park are some storage buildings and soldiers quarters, plus a small part of the moat.  Still, it was quite beautiful and quite large.

I think Loni, with her iPhone, took the best pictures of the park:

The clouds were just starting to build, a reminder that we were due to experience Typhoon Jebi tomorrow.  Enjoy the scenery while we can!  We walked back to the hotel to collect C&A for dinner.  The hotel was right across the street from a Daiwa shopping store which had a huge food level in the basement.  Along the way we met up with Betty & Norman from Australia, so they joined us in picking out a place for dinner.  Alice was determined to have tempura shrimp, so we decided on a restaurant with the right pictures in the window.  Sadly, her shrimp came floating in a soup and was soggy.  Loni scored with Udon noodles in a "starch ginger" broth, filled with mushrooms and veggies, with a gelatin-like film over the top.  A stir with a spoon and it dissolved into the nice chicken broth underneath.  She said it was delicious.

Next up:  The Gathering Storm.

  Oooooooooh . . . .

REEELY OLDE JAPAN: SHIRAKAWA-GO

Breakfast at the hotel then on the bus for the drive to Kanazawa, with a stop in the mountain village of Shirakawa-go, another UNESCO site, famous for its gassho-zukuri-style houses with thatched roofs designed to resemble two hands joined in prayer.  The ride took most of the morning and included a lot of the very long tunnels that we're becoming used to.  One of them today was 7 miles!  Once we arrived, our fearless driver took us on a very narrow, twisty, steep road that Yoshiko says most tours don't go up.  The payoff was a lovely view of the village from a hilltop.

This place gets a LOT of water runoff from the surrounding mountains, and they still cultivate rice in amongst the houses.  Each plot feeds a family of 4-5.  As they are rather isolated here, the rice is for their own consumption.  After everyone got their fill of snapshots, we headed down to a parking area on the right bank of the river you can see at lower right.  To get to the village proper, we had to cross a suspension bridge that was impressively long.  I think it would be a bit more exciting in the rainy season when those rocks below are covered with running water.  Chuck, Alice, & Loni are on there somewhere.

Once in the town, we were free to roam around until the meetup time, a couple of hours later.  The place isn't that big, so we had time to wander and enjoy the old architecture, rice paddies, etc.  This might be a big tourist attraction, but people live their ordinary lives here so you have to respect their private property.  We enjoyed the scarecrows arrayed along this building.  The locals take advantage of the abundant cool, running water.  The sluice in the top right pic holds various canned and bottled drinks for the merchant (out of sight), and a diversion sends the water down over them constantly.  Old roof construction, and a lily pond.

lChuck and Alice at the overlook; rice paddy; tourist store wares.

The houses are 2-300 years old, all built with steep roofs to shed all the snow they get here from storms off the Sea of Japan.  They're put together with posts, beams, and rope!

Most of them have doors on the second story so that they can get in and out when the drifts pile up.  The roofs get re-thatched every 20-40 years, depending on how bad the soot buildup gets on the inside.  The ceiling wood gets black, but apparently the soot dries and preserves the thatch.  When it is time to redo the roof, the whole town turns out, like a barn raising, and the new roof is up and ready in one day! They make quite a pretty picture.

 

 The thatch is, of course, a tremendous fire hazard and there are water stations throughout the town.  The entire village participates in fire drills.  The water nozzles are all gravity powered, and the pressure must be tremendous.  There's a photo in one of the buildings showing a practice run with all of the nozzles in the village going at the same time.

We got to visit the home of a farmer, half of which he lived in which was off limits, and the other half a museum.  This must have been a pretty wealthy guy at one time, as the woods, silkscreens, and carvings were all pretty fine.  Even had a Buddhist shrine.

We had a little time to spare, and we were hot from the walking, so we stopped off for an ice cream.  Japanese ice cream was uniformly good, with interesting flavor choices.  Had to encourage Loni to leave the trinkets behind so we could get back to the bridge and bus to continue on to Kanazawa.

 Kanazawa is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture, on the eastern coast. It's known for well-preserved Edo-era districts and was the home of the second-most powerful samurai after the shogun.  Before going to the hotel, we did a tour of the Higashi Tea district, home to the geisha center of town.  Although we saw many women walking around in geisha garb, most all were just local teens and young women who were playing dress-up.  There might have been the occasional geisha apprentice, but we couldn't distinguish.  Yoshiko assured us that no self-respecting true geisha would be out at this time of day, and would never permit herself to be photographed.  It takes years of apprenticeship to become a geisha, learning singing, classic dance, tea service, etc.

We didn't bother to view the inside of any of the geisha parlors.  They wanted about $7 just to go in and look around, with no geisha present.  Pass.

After touring this area, we walked over to the samurai district to see the former home of the Nomuras, a wealthy samurai family who served the ruling Maeda family.  Yoshiko termed it a small house, but we thought it was quite large.  Lots of rich wood, painted panels, shrines, mats, and gardens.

Time to walk to our hotel where, we hope, our bags were delivered from the bus while we've been on walkabout.  We're staying at the Kanazawa Tokyu Hotel, quite nicely centrally located and across the street from a huge multi-level mall.  As is the case throughout Japan, these malls house huge food courts ranging from simple take-away to elaborate sitdown.  Collette was providing tonight, but it was at a buffet place that was an absolute madhouse.  It was clear that, in addition to locals, other tours were there as well.  This was not a high point of the tour.  Although the food was quite decent (tempura and sushi available), fighting for a table and then muscling around the various stations to fill your plate was a multi-bump-and-run affair.  We ate, but it was far from a calming evening.  Early crash for us after a very long, interesting day.