Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Hiroshima Area

Our most recent trip was back in March when we took an 11 hour bus ride to the western most part on Honshu island to visit the Hiroshima area. We slept overnight on the bus and arrived in the town of Iwakuni the following morning. It rained the whole trip but cleared up when we arrived and besides a brief hail storm (only lasted a couple of minutes) we had great weather for the trip. There are two somewhat famous attractions to see in Iwakuni. The first is the Kintai Bridge, an arched bridge made of a "Lincoln Log" type construction using no nails. Once you cross the bridge, you can go to a small (one room) museum to see the other attraction - white snakes. These snakes are not albino, their white color is a genetic mutation and they can only be found in an area of Iwakuni where three rivers meet. Iwakuni has some other sites to offer and we saw a pretty fountain park and took the ropeway up to see Iwakuni Castle as well.

We stayed at Iwakuni until about noon and then left to head on to Hiroshima. We arrived around 3pm and our first visit was to the Peace Museum and Park. The museum was only open until 5pm and it was very crowded so we were somewhat rushed to get through the exhibits. We plan to go back soon and spend much more time there. We thought the museum portrayed a very unbiased view of World War II and the events that led up to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima - the museum really promotes the idea of peace and the destruction of nuclear weapons. We had a little bit of daylight left to get out to the park and take some pictures of the memorials and in particular the A-bomb Dome, a building that remained partially intact even though the bomb went off almost directly over it. It is now a symbolic memorial in the Peace Park. We ran into some Yankees fans along the way and took some pictures with them in the park.

We went to dinner at one of the many Okonomiyaki restaurants in Hiroshima. Hiroshima is famous for this type of food - the bottom is like a pancake and the it is topped with meat and vegetable and finally an egg is added to hold everything together. It went very well with our ice cold beers and we enjoyed it. We followed up dinner with a stop at a wine bar near the hotel and had some cheese and a bottle of Sangiovese for dessert. We were finished around 10pm and decided to try to find the marker for the hypocenter, the spot the bomb exploded. We knew it was close to our hotel, but our map was not good and we walked by it twice before we noticed it. The marker is a small plaque on a street lined with apartment buildings, auto shops, and parking lots and no one working on the street even knew where it was.

The following morning we checked out of the hotel and took off for the Miyajima Island ferry. Miyajima is very famous for the floating red torii gate of the Itsukushima Shrine. The torii gate is built in the water and appears to be floating. Miyajima is very scenic and there are lots of hiking trails and wooded areas to explore. The island is crawling with tame deer and we learned that the Japanese believe the deer are sacred and that they carry messages to the gods. Miyajima also happens to be home of the world's largest wooden rice spoon!



After leaving Miyajima, the bus took us to Himeji for the evening. The next morning we visited Himeji Castle, considered Japan's most spectacular castle. The grounds of this castle were much larger than any we have been to before and it took about two hours to see everything. Other castles we have visited only have the main building remaining, but Himeji has many of the original castle structures (including the quarters of the princess and her maids) still standing. According to our tour guide, though most of Himeji City was destroyed during WWII, the castle escaped untouched because they built giant camouflage nets and draped them over the entire castle so that from the air the castle looked the same as the woods surrounding it. This is very fortunate because is truly is a beautiful castle.



This was out last stop on our tour of Western Honshu. Three days was not nearly enough time and we are looking forward to the next trip to that area coming up in May when the Hubbard's come to visit.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

SUMO!!

After returning from Sapporo we immediately turned around and headed for Tokyo and our very first Sumo Tournament. The sumo arena is located in the Ryogoku area of Tokyo, also known as "Sumo Town". Neither of us know a lot about Sumo, but it was fun to watch anyway. It is the national sport in Japan, but you don't have to be Japanese to participate. There were a few Europeans (one made it to the final round) and Mongolians among other nationalities. As soon as we got off the train and approached the arena we saw Sumo wrestlers walking around outside, signing autographs and chatting with the fans. We took a few pictures outside of the arena before heading in for the action.


Each match begins with a ceremony where one of the officials walks around the ring saying something (we're not sure what!) while waving a fan in each direction. After this, both wrestlers throw salt into the ring and do a series of warm-ups before their match begins. Finally, both wrestlers approach the white lines in the center of the ring, bend their knees, put their fists on the lines, and then go! Some matches were over in a couple of seconds, while others went on a bit longer than that. Once a wrestler loses a match he is out of the tournament and eventually it dwindles down to only two wrestlers left. In the last few rounds, the wrestlers were given cash prizes for winning.



Like many sports in the U.S. you can buy souveniors of all types at the arena. You can get everything from t-shirts to sumo shaped chocolates (which Ed couldn't resist!). We need to learn the rules and more about the wrestlers so that next time we know whats going on. But now we can say we've been to see Sumo!

Snow Festival!

I apologize to those of you who have been following our blog for the delay. I know its April now, but we will look back to February and tell you about some of the trips we took. Every year in Sapporo there is a snow festival in February. This year the festival was from Feb. 5-11. Before the opening day of the festival, artists come to Sapporo to carve magnificent sculptures out of packed snow and ice. These masterpieces line the center of Odori Park in downtown Sapporo.
Ed and I stayed at the Hotel Gracery, a modern hotel near the train station. This was our first experience in a Japanese hotel and all in all it was a pretty good one. The room was small but functional, the bathroom mirror had a defogger built in (you have to have a steamed up mirror to appreciate the brilliance of this!), and we were close to all the sights. The breakfast included traditional Japanese and traditional Western style foods. The first morning we opted for the Western style breakfast, but I decided to be adventurous the second morning and go for some salmon, rice, dumplings, and other Japanese morning foods.

We met up with a friend of ours at the airport and on the first night in Sapporo we went to dinner with him at the Sapporo Beer Garden. You would have to visit to appreciate the scene as we walked in...imagine a large redbrick warehouse style building filled with smoke and the smell of grilled meat...every man's dream right!? The hot item on the menu was all you can eat lamb and veggies plus all you can drink Sapporo beer for 3500 yen (so about 35 bucks). Well, this may not be a good deal for light eating Japanese, but for three hungry Americans it was a steal! After eating about an entire lamb and more than our fair share of beer, we headed to Odori Park to see the ice sculptures at night.



After viewing the sculptures, we made friends with a Japanese vendor in a cow hat and bought some hot beer with honey from his friend. This may sound like a weird drink, but after walking around on snow and ice in the freezing weather it really tasted good and warmed us right up.





On our last day in Sapporo we visited the old government building, which is modeled after the Maryland and Massachusetts State Houses. Then we went back to the park one last time and watched some snowboarders jump off a ramp for awhile before we had to get to the train station to head for the airport.

Sapporo is the major city on the northern island of Hokkaido and we had fun, but still have much of that island to explore. It is a big change from the crowded and busy Tokyo area. Hokkaido is full of national parks, mountains, wetlands, and other places of natural beauty so we would like to go back when the weather is warmer to visit some of these locations.