Days 4-6 (February 13-15, 2024): JAPAN

Japan can be a bit overwhelming — so many people, so much order…  You can quickly feel like you’re about to be scolded for not following the rules that you should know but couldn’t possibly!  Fortunately, we had been initiated to the national psyche several years ago, on our first trip here.

Our first night was simply a night at the Crowne Plaza near Narita Airport, with 7AM departure back to Narita the next morning for our 9AM flight to Hiroshima, landing 10:30AM.  When we arrived at Hiroshima Airport, we took a bus to the city center, which is a 48KM / hour-long distance.  The perfect, orderly, silent queue for the bus, followed by the completely silent trip to the city (and the bus was packed!), provided a good reminder that things work differently in Japan.  Within minutes of landing in the country, you see the tranquil, orderly, polite approach of the Japanese to everything.  It reveals itself in little things, like security guards wearing gloves and hats, receipts being presented to you with two hands by sales clerks, line-ups for transportation in the most orderly and quiet fashion.  And beyond the orderly world of the airport, you quickly realize there are no homeless people, no wandering dogs or cats (and hence, no you-know-what on sidewalks!), and not a scrap of litter to be be seen anywhere.  Now, I know those are easy statements to make, but I exaggerate not!  

We came to Japan with one key goal:  to see the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima and to learn more about the impact of the first atomic bombing of a city.  

We checked into our hotel and soon set off for the Peace Memorial Park, located close by.  The afternoon was spent visiting the various sites within the Peace Memorial Park, the (sad) highlight being the A-Bomb Dome UNESCO World Heritage Site.  From there, we explored Hiroshima-jo (also known as Carp Castle), and on to the Memorial Cathedral of World Peace.  Dinner was an experience in itself (as explained below) at an udon noodle house.

On our second day, we were up with the sun, had a beautiful breakfast at our hotel, thoroughly enjoyed Shukkei-en Gardens, Fido-in Temple, the Hiroshima Museum of Art, and the covered shopping district of Hondori, where we ate lunch, before heading to the massive Hiroshima Station for our 3:30PM Shinkansen Nazomi (bullet train) to the city of Hakata.  We had a 7:30PM flight to Manila from Fukoaka International Airport, near Hakata. 

The first welcome we saw at Narita was — appriately for a country obsessed with cartoon characters -- a welcome by Super Mario.

The walk-up sunrise for our first day in Japan.  Actually, we woke at 3AM.  The North America-to-Asia time change is nasty on the body. 

In Narita, we stayed at the ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel, near the Narita Airport.  

The flight from Narita to Hiroshima afforded the most amazing views of both the metropolitan Tokyo area (which went on forever!) and Mount Fuji.

Our hotel in Hiroshima was The Knot Hiroshima, a wonderful and central hotel near the Peace Memorial Park.

Peace Memorial Park

At 8:15AM on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the atomic bomb (“A-Bomb”) on the city of Hiroshima.  At the north end of Peace Memorial Park, which was the commercial and residential heart of the city in 1945, there is a large T-shaped bridge, and that served as the target for the pilot of the Enola Gay, the US aircraft that dropped the bomb.  The bomb exploded at a height of 600m above the bridge.  350,000 people were present that day.  80,000 died instantly.  130,000 more died in the ensuing months from radioactive poisoning, secondary effects and extensive burns.  There were 20,000 forced Korean labourers there that day, and 6000 junior-high school students were working to clear fire breaks in anticipation of an enemy attack.  In addition to the deaths, the survivors endured decades of mental trauma and heightened levels of cancer.

When the bomb exploded it created a temperature of 2000-degrees Celsius, which set off a firestorm.  92% of the city was destroyed.

Peace Memorial Park was raised on the site of the city’s center, where the bomb exploded, as a memorial to the victims, and also as a reminder of the horrors of nuclear war and to advocate for peace.  The park is filled with monuments, memorials, a museum and lecture halls.  There are over 1 million visitors each year.

The view of Peace Memorial Park from our hotel.

Peace Memorial Museum is the main museum explaining the atomic bombing.  Sadly for us, it was closed for a change in exhibit.  We were able to learn what we needed to learn from other facilities in the city, but it broke our hearts not to be able to see this museum.

A drum donated by Hiroshima’s twinned city in Korea.

The Cenotaph, which contains the names of all known victims of the blast.

The Hiroshima National Peace Memorial.  This circular room contains the names of the neighbourhoods destroyed by the blast.  In the center is an installation showing the time of 8:15, the time the bomb was dropped.

The rood of the National Memorial Hall contains another installation showing the time of 8:15AM.  It is surrounded by rubble from buildings that were destroyed.

The Monument of Prayer

The Flame of Peace is to burn until all nuclear weapons in the world are destroyed.

The Children’s Peace Monument.  The kiosks surrounding it are filled with chains of paper origami cranes, made by children from all over the world.

The A-Bomb Memorial Mound contains a vault of the unidentified ashes and remains of thousands of victims.

The Bell of Peace

These are the remains of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, now commonly referred to as the A-Bomb dome.  Although the bomb exploded only 160m from it (at a height of 600m), it is one of the few structures left standing in Hiroshima and has come to be seen as the symbol of the bombing.  Everyone who was inside it that day died instantly.  In 1996, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

This is what the building looked like before the bombing.  It was designed by a Czech architect in 1915.

The Motoyasu River runs alongside Peace Memorial Park.

Hiroshima-jo (Carp Castle)

Carp Castle was built in the 1590s to house the feudal lord of the Hiroshima Domain.  It is located just north of Peace Memorial Park and is surrounded by a huge moat.  It was completely destroyed in the bombing, but the castle itself and some of the buildings on the island were rebuilt in the 1950s.

The moat and walls of the island containing Carp Castle.

A red-berry tree

Once reconstructed in 1958, Carp Castle became a museum.

The view from the top floor of Carp Castle:

Traditional Japanese gate to the entrance of Gokoku Shrine on the island.

This willow tree survived the atomic bombing.

Although Japan’s famous cherry blossoms are still a month away, the flowering crab trees were breaking open all over!

The Ruins of Ninomaru at Hiroshima Castle, and the main gate to the island.

Memorial Cathedral of World Peace

The Noboricho Parish Church was destroyed in the bombing.  There were four foreign priests living at the complex when the bombing happened.  Two died and two were injured, including Rev. Hugo Lassalle, who was determined to rebuild the church and ensure it was established as a symbol of peace.

Shukkei-en Garden

There is nothing as perfect and beautifu as a Japanese garden.  And Hiroshima has a gem of such a garden!  Shukkei-en was destroyed in the bombing, but its flowers started blooming as soon as the following year.  Many bombing victims went there on August 6, 1945 and in the following days, as a place of refuge, and many died there.  It is difficult to imagine such horror amidst the order and beauty of the restored garden.

These trees are wrapped in bamboo during the winters.

This footbridge was built a few years before the bombing and survived!

The flowering crab trees were starting to bloom!

Fido-in Temple

Fido-in Temple is a Buddhist temple built in the 8th century.  It is located 4km from the bomb blast site and miraculously survived.  It is the only National Treasure located in Hiroshima.

Red caps have been knitted for each of the statues.

Hiroshima Museum of Art

Opened in 1978, the Hiroshima Museum of Art focuses on both French and Japanese Impressionism.

A painting by a Japanese Impressionist artist.

Any art gallery with a Claude Monet speaks to a quality collection!

The Former Hiroshima Branch of the Bank of Japan

Located on Fukuromachi, one of the city’s main thoroughfares, the bank was another of the few structures left standing after the blast.  It now tells the story of the bombing and the emigration that happened after the War, as people left Hiroshima for all corners of the globe. That is survived is miraculous. That it was partially up and running two days later, is testament to its importance and to the resilience of Hiroshima in 1945.

The Shinkansen Nazomi (Bullet Train) Experience

The Shinkansen Naomi trains remind me of an albino

python slithering into the station. They are extremely long trains of 16 cars.  Economy has a 3-2 seat configuration;  we reserved a group two seats. The countryside whizzed by at incredible speeds up to 300km/h. The train is extremely quiet — both the people (no one speaks) and the wheel-track interaction. Unlike in Canada, where the track is laid in sections that result in a noisy ‘clickety-clack’.  The 267km distance from Hiroshima to Hakata was covered in 62 minutes, including a stop at a station enroute.

Peculiarities of Japan

Every sidelwak — and I mean every sidewalk — in the city has a line of raised markers for aiding those who are visually impaired.  Japan is light years ahead of Canada in this regard.  We speculated as to whether it may be a result of the number of people who were blinded by exploding glass from the atomic bomb.

If you thought the Brits were experts at queuing, you ain’t seen nothin’ til you experience a Japanese queue!  Queuing lines like this one at the airport in Hiroshima are everywhere.

Craving an American breakfast?  You will have a tough hunt.  We found a ‘breakfast’ meal at the Narita airport that came with a sausage and an egg, so we felt lucky.  The add-one of miso soup, rice, pickled cabbage, seaweed, green onion and a ‘dessert’ of sticky something-or-other did not quite suite our palates, though!

And while we are talking restaurant food, let’s talk about udon noodles for a moment.  The last time we were in Japan, we went to a noodle place for lunch, where we experienced udon noodles for the first time.  Udon noodles are as long as your arm and are very thick.  How to eat them with chopsticks remains a mystery.  That previous udon experience left us traumatized.  We bravely decided to give it another go on this trip, and I think we are even more traumatized than the last time.  Two guys were seated across from us at the same table.  They stared and stared and stared at our every slurp.  It was awful.

And while these are not udon noodles, this is just to show how noodle-focused the Japanese are.  This is in a small market store.  The sheer variety of noodle cups was astonishing!

The Japanese are vending machine gurus.  There are vending machines e v e r y w h e r e!  At 100 yen (about a dollar), you can get any type of beverage imaginable.

This packs 56aged banana says so much about Japanese culture.  It was exquisitely wrapped, and the stem was cut off ‘just so’.  A banana fit for an emperor. 

The Japanese love their fast food, just as North Americans do, and all the big chains are well represented here.  Neat to see McDonald’s written on the Golden Arches sign in Japanese.

And I could go on and on about toilets!  Whether it is in a public washroom in a train station or airport or  a park, the washrooms are immaculately clean.  And every toilet is state-of-the-art:  the seats are warm, they will spray your bottom, they will dry your bottom, and I swear there are some models that will make you a cappuccino while you sit.  The cleanliness of public toilets cannot be overstated.  Simply unbelievable.

So, what is so amazing about that sign?  Well, just the fact that the Japanese would indicate height above sea level on a telephone pole is quite remarkable.  I mean, can you imagine such an indicator on a street in Toronto?  It’s all part of this national psyche that the public should be informed.

Trains, trains and more trains.  It is high tech, all-pervasive, and incredibly efficient.  You don’t need to own a car in Japan.  And if you do, then good luck with parking it.  Here, three sets of rail tracks are stacked on top of each other in downtown Hakata.

For a city of 1 million people, Hiroshima has an underground metro, an extensive bus network, a ferry network, and a tram network.  The city’s streets are wide, with tram tracks running down the middle.  The gloved operators are amazingly efficient and very polite.

And finally, let’s talk about Valentine’s Day.  Valentine’s Day is celebrated in two parts in Japan:  on February 14th, the women give the man chocolate.  On March 14th (known as ‘White Day’), the men give the women gifts equal to three times the value of the chocolate they received on February 14th.