Hiroshima mon amour....

This is what Japan is all about, giant Robots, cool looking towers and mad streetlamps.... love it.

From Kyoto we decided to do a quick detour to Kobe, scene of the terrible 1995 earthquake. This city has had such a regeneration after those dreadful events, it’s a real testament to Japans ability to endure and overcome disaster. First up was the amazing 18m tall Tetsujin 28 giant robot sculpture in Wakamatsu Park, an area of the city hardest hit by the quake and a symbol of the cities revival. After that we headed to the Kobe Fashion Musuem on Rokko Island just to see the building itself, sort of like a parked Starship Enterprise, although getting there on the monorail from town was very cool too. The inside of the building was pretty amazing too, we naturally gave the Fashion exhibits a miss tho (you’ve seen the way I dress, they’d have asked me to leave!).

I like a nice skyscraper and Japan certainly has plenty of those. The weird & wonderful Fashion Museum in Kobe, 'seam me up Scotty' , and Curtis strikes a pose 'work that snow suit'!

Following this we got the monorail off of the island, and visited the oddly named Disaster Reduction & Human Renovation Museum dedicated to the quake and it’s aftermath. It’s a very moving exhibition, and delves deeply into the effects both short & long term of that day Jan 171995. The quake happened at  5.46am so it was still dark and most people were asleep. The most moving part for me was the fact that it was the local people who dug out their neighbors from the rubble, as emergency services where so overwhelmed, and the hardship the survivors faced in freezing conditions in the weeks following the quake. We were given a tour by a volunteer quake survivor who told us the main thing that the people of Kobe have learnt from the experience is the importance of co-operation and helping each other. A lesson for us all I think.

The clock outside the Disaster Reduction & Human Renovation Museum, Kobe and a view over the city at night

 After leaving the museum we told a sobering walk to Kobe City Hall where they have an observation lounge on the 25^th floor for a stunning early evening view over the city, although i must admit after the quake museum, being that high up gave me the heebie jeebies and I was glad when we were back on terra firma. So, after a packed day we headed back to our hotel for a well deserved kip.

Next day we got up early, well, to be fair, Curtis gets us up early every day anyway, and headed to Hiroshima via a morning trip to the Castle at Himeji, one of the most famous and impressive in Japan. Well, it would have been if it hadn’t been in the middle of a 6 year renovation. Slightly disappointed, we decided to go on the tour of the inside of the castle and it’s grounds, and we were very glad we did. A lovely Japanese lady volunteer gave us a insightful (and bl**dy freezing it has to be said) 90 min tour, so the journey wasn’t wasted.

2 shots of sections of Himeji castlec, as you can see from the scaffolding behind it'll be great when it's finished....

After the tour we picked our pack up from the station locker and jumped on our first Shinkanshen (bullet train) to Hiroshima. We’d seen one whiz thru a station a couple of days before and jeez do they move! So, it pulls up to the station looking exactly as you expect (and want) it too look. Like a cross between Concorde and the missing Thunderbird. It’s a truly beautiful thing, all sleek lines and Japanese efficiency, and of course very, very fast, but you don’t feel it on the train itself. We arrived in Hiroshima an hour or so later and checked in at our hotel. One thing we hadn’t banked on was the fact that as Hiroshima is such a popular destination for Japanese weekend tourist, that all the hotels double their prices on Sat night, and we arrived on Fri night, so we had to check out of our hotel the next night (or pay (£120) and find alternative accommodation.

The ruins of the A-bomb dome complete with snow and the Memorial Cenotaph in the Peace Park in Hiroshima

So we checked out early the next morning, left our bags in the storage room and went of sightseeing. I’m so glad we got an early start, as we were in the Peace Memorial Park by around 9am and had it mostly too ourselves for that first 30 mins or so. It had been sowing the night before so the whole park was covered in a blanket of snow, and it was still snowing slightly as we wandered thru the park. I’d always wanted to visit Hiroshima for many years, since I was a kid really, I felt from an early age that what the Americans did in Hiroshima & Nagasaki was wrong, just a convenient way of testing their new toys and justifying the huge expense in their research and production to the American people. After gazing at the many touching and thought provoking statues and monuments to the victims of the Atomic blast we went into the excellent Peace Memorial Museum. If you weren’t against Nuclear arms before you entered the museum, you sure as hell were when you left.

Various statues given to Japan from many different countries as symbols of peace, in the Peace Park in Hiroshima

It’s a very balanced  exhibition about the lead up to the dropping of the bomb, Japans role in the war, and of course, the horrific effects, both long and short term of Aug 8^th 1945. It’s genuinely moving and harrowing experience, but above all you do leave with a positive air, and a hope that this will never happen again. The two models of Hiroshima, one before the bomb dropped and one the day after did it for me, the utter devastation that happened in a few seconds, the complete flattening of an entire city and it’s citizens. You learn a great deal about the after effects of the explosion and the battle for survival of the people of Hiroshima afterwards, again showing the Japanese strength to rebuild and move on. Much like leaving the Vietnamese War Musuem in Saigon, the experience just made me want to punch the first American I saw, or is that just a natural reaction to American sin general?. After this we went to visit a couple of recommended Art  Museums on the outskirts of the city, mainly to see a couple of Dali’s and a famous Japanese painting that wasn’t on display at the time.

Curtis like a Warhol or two, bit of a mad sign in Hiroshima, and yes, another skyscraper.

The night before I’d booked us into a cheap-ish Ryoken on the other side of town, so after a quick detour to do some record shopping, we headed there. It took us a while to find, and when we got there the room was freezing cold, but we stuck the heater on and after about 3 hours we could take our coats off! It was our first taste of sleeping Japanese style on a tatami mat and futon mattress, and a very nice nights sleep we had.

Curtis just can't function without that first canned coffee of the day. The striking Itsukushima shrine on Miyajima Island

 After a little discussion, and as we’d seen most of the sights in Hiroshima the day before, we decided to do another full on day and head to Nagasaki via a morning trip to the Itsukushima shrine on Miyajima Island. I must say, we nearly didn’t do it, but it turned out to be one of the highlights (temple wise) of the trip so far. It took a fair few hours planning the night before, but we left early again and got a tram, train and ferry to the island and once again got there just before the masses of Japanese weekend visitors.

Me and the missus (and for some reason, the Japanese lady didn't want Curtis in the photo!). Another view of the shrine.

The shrine itself is actually in the ocean just offshore, and is quite an impressive site with the mainland behind it. The site itself is very touristy, you go thru a maze of platforms before getting to the main viewing platform where everyone queues up in an orderly fashion to have their picture taken in front of the shrine. On a whim we decided to stroll up to Daisho-in, the Buddhist temple uphill from the shrine. An amazing place, dotted with little walkways, ponds, and shrines, with hundreds of small Buddha statues dotted along paths and a great cave with hundreds of lanterns above a room full of more Buddha statues. But the view itself looking up the hillside with the waterfall next to it was just so special, just the whole vibe of the place was relaxing and calming. So glad we did it.

I think these bales are kegs of Sake. The very cool shrine in Daisho-in Buddhist temple on Miyajima Island.

After getting the ferry back to the mainland and the train back to Hiroshima station we got another bullet train to Nagasaki our next destination.

We both liked Nagasaki as soon as we got there, it’s a pleasant small-ish city surround by hllls on three sides and the sea on the fourth. We arrived around 4pm and headed to the hotel to relax for the rest of the evening and plan a full day tomorrow. We left the hotel early again and headed for the Nagasaki Peace Park, again lot’s of statues and memorials to the victims of the 2^nd atomic bomb dropped 3 days after the first. Not as pretty as the Hiroshima park, but still engaging enough.

Bell sculpture in the Peace Park, Nagasaki, a strange pile of statue heads in Urakami Cathedral & the Peace Memorial Hall.

We then visited the Atomic Bomb Museum & Peace Hall, our second in 2 days. We both felt Nagasaki’s museum was more graphic than Hiroshima’s and accordingly more harrowing. There were more photos of the dead, many of them children, and more of the radiation and scarring suffered by the survivors after the event. Again it still packed a punch, and we found out a lot about the events leading up to the dropping of both bombs. It’s clear Japan was ready to surrender, and would have done had the terms been right, but America had some testing to do, so the rest is unfortunately history. It’s good that these museums are here as a grim reminder of the power of these weapons. 

A view over Nagasaki city from the hills behind Oura Church and one of the old colonial houses on the dutch slopes.

After here we wandered past the Urakami Cathedral, itself destroyed in the blast and rebuilt after the war with two surviving  charred statues in front as a reminder of what happened. From here we took the tram South to see Oura Church, which was pretty enough, nothing much to see inside so we strolled thru the church graveyard to the Dutch slopes, an pretty area on the hillside with old Western style houses. After this we walked down to the harbour area and past the Art Museum and Dejima Wharf, a tacky recreation of a Dutch community next to the harbour. Naturally, we gave this a miss and went to find Sonny Boy, Nagasaki’s only record shop. After leaving there empty handed we headed home via the cute ‘spectacles bridge’ (Megane bashi). We went to find food a shopping centre close by early evening and found a great pizza place, it looked like any other tacky shopping centre franchise, but the pizza was one of the best I’ve had for ages. Result. No tofu & noodle soup for me tonight!

Recreated Dutch warehouse near the docks in Nagasaki, and the lovely canal system there.

Back at the hotel we made a plan for the next day, we were going to head to Unzen to see the Jigoko’s (hot springs) and the volcano at Fugen-dake but realised it was a long, and expensive day out, and with Curtis we were unsure of how far we got go up the volcano surrounds.

Battleship Island (Gunkanjima), you can see where it gets it's nickname....

Instead we opted  to visit Battleship Island (Gunkanjima), an abandoned island 15k offshore with it’s buildings left in a state of decay,  and early morning we headed off to catch the 9am ferry. Unfortunately, children under 6 were not allowed to disembark from the ferry due to the dangerous tides, so I went reluctantly off on my own. So glad I did tho, this was right up my dori, the island was abandoned in the mid-seventies after the coal mine closed and was opened to tourism a few years ago. It’s called battleship island due to it’s resemblance to said battleship as you near the island. Your only allowed to visit 3 view points on the island due to the danger of falling buildings, but it was well worth it, there was a real sense of desolate eeriness to the place, not helped by the fact that it was bloody freezing!

One old ruin standing in front of some others.... another shot of the eerily deserted buildings on Gunkanjima.

Another shot of the ruins on Gunkanjima, and the unusual ferry terminal at Nagasaki port.

 I met Susan back at the ferry terminal and we wandered off to the Church/monument of the 26 Martyrs, a sort of Gaudi-esque church with a nice monument in front. After that we strolled around the hills thru what seemed like miles of graveyards till we got to Fukasai-ji a weird looking Zen temple set on the back of a giant turtle, with a tacky 18m tall goddess behind. Close by was Shofoku-ji a nice enough temple on the hill. Susan then headed off to go to the Inasa-yama viewpoint accessible via a ropeway (cable car) and giving panoramic views over the city. I took Curtis back to the hotel and researched our next brief destination, Kagoshima.

The 26 martyrs memorial and the entrance to Fukusai-ji Zen temple, Nagasaki (complete with giant turtle, as you do...)