3-25-07

This whirlwind style of tourism is fun but it is exhausting! The problem is that there is so much to see in Japan but I only have so much time and even less money with which to do it. The solution, of course, is to race from one site to the next taking enough time to admire the scenery and trying to enjoy myself at the same time. Of course I enjoy myself, it`s the reason I`m still traveling after (how long has it been?) 4 months. But there is so much to write about and I am yet so weary from doing it all, so its going to be captions again.

I managed find the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Museum and surrounding buildings quite easily. It`s really quite hard to miss, there are signs all over the place just like in Kumamoto and Nagasaki in English showing where local sites are. The mass transit system also makes it very easy to get from one place to another, it seems like it was designed around tourist attactions and historical sites.

This statue is supposed to symbolize a huge cement coffin for the bomb victims. But looking through there is an eternal flame at the other end of the memorial. Many people come through here to set down flowers and pray.


Day after I arrived it rained. And rained. And rained. This normally wouldn`t be such a big deal except I wanted to get to Kyoto ASAP. So I decided to see as much as possible and then decide what I was going to do, even though this has been my plan pretty much my entire trip. I started out at the Atomic Bomb Dome, as it`s called, though it`s really the remains of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. It has been preserved to look exactly the same way it did immediately after the blast and is now a World Heritage Site. To be honest it looks horrible, the skeletal structure of the roof is the result of the metal melting off during the first few seconds of the atomic bomb blast which was detonated directly overhead.


I was able to go the the Atomic Bomb museum and I have to say I don`t know which one is better, the one in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. They both present similar material in differente ways. I`m tempted to say it`s "same same only differente" except I can`t stand the phrase as it became a kind of catch-all during my travels throught South East Asia. I don`t know how many shirts I saw with it as the logo or even as the name of at least 2 guest hosues. Both of them do have diplays of watches and clocks that are frozen at 11:02 and 8:15am, broken from the respective exploding bombs. One of the most heart-wretching stories that I have ever read was in the Hiroshima museum though. A little boy died in the blast and his father buried him and the boy`s treasured tricycle in the back yard because there were no proper burial sites. Years later the boy was exhumed and placed in a proper grave and the tricycle was dug up and donated to the museum. It`s the most touching thing I`ve seen in years, a completely rusted-over tricycle the Dad buried so his son could use it in the after life.

I also got to see the Children`s Memorial which was inspired by Sadako, a young girl who contracted leukemia after the bomb. It was surreal, I had read the story about Sadako and the thousand paper cranes when I was like in 4th grade and never imagined I would see her exhibit, let alone the actual cranes she made.

These cranes weren`t at the Children`s Memorial but inside the Bomb Museum near the end as part of the exhibits talking about those affected by the bomb who survived the initial blast.

After the Museum I wandered around and took photos of the clock tower, and other things. By this time the rain was really coming down and I still had to see the Hiroshima Castle. It`s a replica so that kind of bummed me out (the original was destroyed by the Atomic Bomb) but the exhibits inside more than made up for the lack of authentic building materials. Not only were there English videos explaining the rise of Hiroshima but on the third floor (or was it the fourth?) there were multiple displays of Samurai swords, katanas, wakizashis and tantos. The coolness factor was almost overwhelming, here were the relics every 15 year old boy would die for. Behind glass cases were the stuff of legends, Samurai movies and Saturday mornings spent in front of the television. Not only were these authentic swords but they were beautiful, simply breathtaking. They were so clean and unmarked, it was hard to believe they had ever been used at all, and I instantly coveted them.

This one in particular, I have no idea what it was called because all the writing was in Japanese Kanji. But it`s a remarkable piece, I just stood and stared at it for I don`t know how long. I`ve tried looking it up online, on wikipedia, nothing. It`s obviously some kind of long two-handed sword, but it`s straight, not bent like a katana or wakazashi.









It also has some amazing engraving of a dragon on it which makes me think it was ceremonial and not carried onto the battle field.

There was also a small display on the forging of katanas which was all in Kanji so I didn`t understand it but the physical examples were really neat, making swords takes a lot of time and work, often employing many people for one weapon.




Since it was still raining hard and I had no umbrella I decided to check out the Renoir`s at the Art Museum. However, I wasn`t about to pay 1000 yen for admission so I ducked into an internet cafe to try to wait out the rain. Unfortunately the rain lasted for the rest of the day.

Then lots of fun things happened (saw a wedding, World Heritage Shrine, fed/got bitten by deer, ate oysters) and eventually made it on the bullet train to Kyoto, city of buses and trains. Kyoto has one of the largest train stations in Japan and a great public transportation system. It`s cool and has a TON of Unesco World Heritage sites. It`s enough to make ones head spin at the number of things to see, let alone figure out the logistics of how to see them all. I had two days to see half a bajillion sites that are preserved national treasure, culturally important and just plain rad. Of course I didn`t see them all, I need to save some for the next time I visit Japan. I`m going to skip the things that don`t look good and focus on the ones that do look good in pictures.

Near Amida Hall in Kyoto is a huge pile of rope that was used to help raise large pieces of timber up to construct a temple. Normally this wouldn`t be a big deal except that the local rope wasn`t very strong and there wasn`t enough. After requests from the rulers, young women of the area cut off their hair and sent it in to be made into rope. The photo on the right? Rope made of human hair, in my opinion way cooler than clothes made of human hair. In case you were wondering, Ripley`s Odditoriums (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odditorium) sometimes have clothes made of human hair. It must itch like crazy.

Since I`m a big fan of traditional crafts (and Kyoto is the traditional crafts center of Japan) I decided to go to the Traditional Crafts Museum. There were so many beautiful examples of bamboo baskets, tea sets, bento laquer sets, I almost didn`t want to leave. I thought it would be nice to pick up a set of these origami-looking lanterns but then noticed the price. There was no way I was going to pay $250 for one of these, it would be so hard to pack on the plane. The actually look like rip-offs of David Brill`s design for similar orbs made out of origami.

I managed to see Nijo Castle, Ryoanji Temple (the best example of a Zen garden in Japan), and the Imperial Garden which was absolutely gorgeous, filled with apricot, plum, and cherry blossoms, all of which blew my mind. I seriously spent over an hour taking pictures and wandering around in a daze muttering `Pretty . . . flowers` like some kind of metro-sexual Frankenstein`s Monster.

Here are some now. I have a lot more, so many more actually, but will have to post them a little later. Or maybe I`ll start a web album,

http://picasaweb.google.com/taylorokamura