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.