Miyajima: Climb It

I sure ain't in Kansas any more. And I thought the drive to NYC was a haul when I was living in Exton!




My apologies for the long wait, I hadn't meant to take ten days to continue my story about Hiroshima and Miyajima, but midterms got in the way and the like. Anyway, on to day two!

I woke the next morning and learned my first lesson about staying in internet cafes: set an alarm. Because I left 20 minutes late I had to pay an extra 500 yen. 500 yen for 20 minutes! At this point I knew I was headed to Miyajima so I grabbed a drink and headed to the station. One 15 minute train ride later and I was at Miyajimaguchi where I boarded a ferry and headed to the most photographed Torii gate in the nation.

Now you can board a ferry in Hiroshima which will take you directly to Miyajima from the Peace Memorial Park, but I decided to take the train. Why you might ask? Because I didn't realize there was a ferry from Hiroshima which I maintain is probably the most valid reason possible.

For a larger map giving context of where Hiroshima itself is in comparison to Osaka and the rest of Japan see my last post.


The day was nothing if not absolutely gorgeous. The smell of salt water and a nice breeze while the sun shone down was exactly what I needed after a wet and heavy day in Hiroshima. The ferry is very nice, though it was crowded, and cheap.


After landing and disembarking I just started to walk around the island. Miyajima itself is a huge tourist spot with a temple built over water and the beautiful Aotorii which you can take a boat through at high tide, yet walk out to on dry land at low tide. The regional specialty foods are a local style of Okinomiyaki which is very different from the Okinomiyaki we have here in Osaka, oysters served every way you can imagine, and a maple-leaf shaped baked good filled with a variety of fillings, though the most traditional is the all-too ubiquitous and delicious red bean paste.


These guys again.


I hadn't yet eaten, so I quickly got hungry and whipped out some of the dried fish I'd bought the day before in Hiroshima and started to go to town. At this the very tame deer of Miyajima came out in droves. I fed them a little, despite knowing full well that I shouldn't do so. I was saved pretty quickly from the threat of angry and hungry dear tearing me limb from limb though, as my friends from the day before ran into me entirely at random and we toured the temple.


There's also this, which is huge, and which I didn't see up close unfortunately.





Eventually we broke for lunch where I got my first taste of the local oysters. They were delicious in this Kakiudon. We also ran into some more awesome gaijin from KG which was unsurprising given that there were about 70 of us on the island all at once.


At this point Dylan and I (he's in green in that pic) ditched the girls once again in favor of mountain climbing. Miyajima has a beautifully tall peak which can be reached by the adventurous by one of 3 mountain trails in varying states of repair and ease, or by pansy girly-men in a cable car. The ladies were excited about riding a cable car and being at the summit in 15 minutes while we were stoked on setting aside 3.5 hours for hiking.


The hike followed a river for a good bit, then split off much higher. We added a good hour to our hike up the mountain by playing around in the stream, hiking off the trail, and climbing things we were probably not meant to climb. It made for good fun and a few amazing pics for the photo album. Unfortunately most of the pics of me are on his camera and all those of him are on mine.








I thought the views were beautiful as we started to get above the first layer of treetops. Boy was I in for a surprise.

I took this shot hanging from a tree over a faster-flowing portion of the river. When I got home and realized that such a terrible photo came of it I was thoroughly displeased.



At about the halfway point the views really began to be astonishing and only got better from there. I'd say they were taking my breath away, but that deed was being accomplished mostly by the far-too-heavy pack I was carrying.






Near the top there was a very small shrine. Offerings of Cup-Noodle were all over. Sometimes I wonder about this place...



Just before the summit the trails join up with the drop off point for the cable car and we joined in lighting some incense/candles in another small shrine. Then we headed straight for the top. When we got there we clambered up on top of some huge boulders and enjoyed some of the most amazing views I've ever seen.







Eventually we headed back down the mountain to catch low tide so that we could walk out and touch the Aotorii.

It very quickly becomes very crowded at low tide. We made it pretty quickly, at the lowest point there were swarms of tourists at the base.


At this point I simply took a break to spend all my money on food.

Delicious Kakiokinomiyaki that blew my mind and tasted nothing like Osaka's Okinomiyaki.

Tasty little treat. I will partake more of them next time I'm around. I also had one fried on a stick. Grilled oysters and an asparagus bacon corndogesque thing on a stick were also amazing, but they were too quickly devoured for me to manage a photo of them.



As the sun set we hopped back on the fairy and made our way back home on the ever amazing Shinkansen. I'd recommend visiting Miyajima to anybody who's going to be in the Hiroshima area. It could be done with Hiroshima in a single day if you took the cable car instead of hiking.

One last thing. I'd recommend, for those enjoying my travels, that you check out my flickr page at www.flickr.com/people/delue . I keep a map by GPS tagging all of the photos I take and post on there so you can see exactly where all of my photos were taken. It's a handy tool. Just go to that page, click photostream and then choose map. Also subscribe and leave me love in the comments my friends.

Next will likely be an amalgam of the best of Osaka thusfar, though I'm not sure when that will be. I may also embark on some epic journeys this weekend and if such is the case you will be the first to know. Much love to you all.

Keep the stoke,

DeLue

Hiroshima

Words usually come easily to me. I find that descriptions of places flow easily for me and that I can relatively easily convey the sense of a place. I've also found on many an occasion that I have a strange relationship with the morose. I do not find death in and of itself to be depressing and I find trials and pain to have their own sorrowful beauty. This is not to say that I enjoy pain and death, but only that death and pain themselves do not scare me nor do they make me sad.

Hiroshima shook me.

Death ending a life well-lived, or nobly-lived is not a scary concept. Death as part of the very definition of what it is to be alive and as an affirmation of that life is beautiful. The way you see death in Hiroshima; death brought about swiftly and with such horrific, mind-boggling, destructive, and impersonal force is probably the most terrifying and hearth-wrenching thing I have ever encountered or even fathomed in my short life.



You surely know the story. You are probably aware of the debates surrounding it as well. I'm going to present my wanderings in Hiroshima entirely on what I saw and describe my experiences. The trip was fun, and very much worth it, but it was not easy. Nor is trying to find any words to describe the feeling of being there.

The journey started WAY to early in the morning on a Saturday as about a billion gaijin attempted to cram themselves into the public bus running to Hirakatashi-eki at about 6:00AM much to the dismay of every other person trying to ride the bus that day. Professor Paul Scott (teaching two of my classes) puts this trip together, so there were about 70 of us in all going.

We made our way through the trains to Shinosaka station where we transferred from the all too familiar subway system to the Shinkansen line, more popularly known around the world as the Japanese "bullet train".


The shinkansen is pretty cool to ride, but not really anything amazing once you're on board. I met some cool people and ended up riding next to the professor the whole way there as we argued about cars. Once we got there my little group decided to split up: the girls went to McDonalds and then rode a tram car to the museum, while my friend and I wandered there by foot and grabbed some dried fish for lunch. This made for a much more immersive and interesting experience of the city itself before we got to the museum.

The Japanese have these awesome manhole covers down to an art.

The local baseball team is the Carp(s?). The Hanshin Tigers are so much better though.


Just for something in the way of geographic knowledge, Hiroshima is actually a city in a delta. There are four rivers running through the city out to the bay, cutting the city into huge islands.

This is the monument to the nurses and doctors who died as a result of radiation sickness after the bombing of Hiroshima.

This is another monument that stands just across the street from the entrance to the museum proper. I couldn't get a good pic of the whole thing, but it's inscribed with the word for peace in several languages.

After this we wandered inside and saw a very small portion of the museum, essentially the part that explained the history of Hiroshima up until August 6th. Thanks to not a small number of classes in Asian/Japanese/Chinese history/politics/economics this was review for me, but interesting nonetheless. At this point we went down to the basement for the real reason I would head on a trip with 70 other gaijin and that is to experience something I wouldn't otherwise get to experience.

I got to hear an atomic bomb survivor speak. Some of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still speaking to this day, some of them even touring around the world. The woman who spoke to us had been to Missouri recently to speak to high-school students in the states. She described to us in (gruesome) detail her experience, her situation, and the way she survived. It was very powerful, and something I am glad I got to hear from somebody who was there. She was very kind and spoke to us one on one afterward. I can't personally with any real effect say what she said, and the information is all out there, albeit likely in a less personal form if you should want it. Needless to say it was powerful and gruesome.

After that we went through the museum.

This T-shaped bridge was the aiming point of the bomb. It actually detonated only 800 meters off target.


Before and after aerial photos of Hiroshima.

Emergency medical treatment being applied at this point only 2-hours after detonation. At this point the complete lack of medical personnel, supplies, and even water meant that the treatment for burns was cooking oil, if it could be found.

The red-cross hospital in Hiroshima.

This part of the museum is largely historical. It presents photos of the effects, historical data and visuals that bring the power and scale of an atomic weapon into perspective. It also puts forth the history of atomic weapons since WWII, and the current status of nuclear-armed nations. Then there's a gift shop, and short walk to the other building of the museum. The second half of this experience is not for the feint of heart.

This wax sculpture was made using the descriptions given by survivors of those who were close enough to the blast to be most directly affected by the heat and radiation, but far enough away to survive. Their skin literally melted off their arms.




The shadow of a man sitting on this stoop at the moment of detonation faded quite a bit with time, but has since been moved indoors to preserve it.

More solid objects left better defined shadows.

I didn't take many photos inside the museum.





This memorial in particular is for Sadako Sasaki




We sat in a nearby rest-house and folded paper cranes. Even a few local folks joined us. Then we left ours and visited the atomic bomb dome.




This building was the closest to the hypocenter to survive at all intact. It's been preserved in exactly the state it was in on August 6, 1945 and as such has become a hallmark image of that day.

From here we decided to find some food, wander about and turn in. My friends had to check into their hostel and I had to figure out where I was sleeping so we ate at a shop near a place that had this standing out front:

which was only mildly disturbing. The food was delicious, as it always is here.


Though I was somewhat worried about where I'd be sleeping that night, I had nothing to fear! Near the station I found a place called Futaba. If you are ever traveling (preferably alone) in Japan and you're on a budget/don't ever remember to make reservations or plans, then you should find an internet cafe. For 2100 yen (like $25 US) I got a semi-private cubicle with a big comfortable reclining chair, a computer with fast internet access, a huge manga library, unlimited soft drinks and ice cream, access to a shower room and bathroom all for 12 hours. It's pretty much the best deal in cheap traveling ever. Just remember to pack your face mask, because they don't shut out the lights. An alternative to this is karaoke bars (one of my favorites being Ring) which offer very similar deals.

My apologies for having such a serious and heavy post, but I promise the next will be uplifting for the next morning I awoke and hauled my fat ass up a mountain! The pictures are spectacular I promise, and you shall want to see them.

Stay tuned for next time: Miyajima

Until then, stay stoked!

"Kyoto: The Anagram Lover's Tokyo"

I've been perplexed as to what to write for this entry. Suffice it to say that it's hard to follow up what happened in Ise, and I've not spent enough time in Kyoto to make a really good judgment of the city, nor have I seen what anybody visiting Kyoto should see. For these reason's I'll make this relatively short and promise you that a second installment at the very least will be forthcoming at some point.



There is a map, for reference, Kyoto lying very close to Osaka, just to the north and east. Hirakata lies between Osaka and Kyoto on this map and my adventures in Ise were on the coast south and west of Nagoya.

Kyoto and Osaka are really one large and growing metropolitan center, and a check on Google Maps will display the sprawling concrete that connects the two. You can get from Osaka to Kyoto on the Keihan railway line for about 800 yen (8 dollars) and on a limited express train it'll take about 30-45 minutes. I happen to be situated almost exactly between the two cities, so visiting them is easy and convenient. Despite this, I've only been to Kyoto twice.

Now for a little Japanese history lesson! Don't worry, I'll be brief. Kyoto is historically the capital of Japan, and was also the largest population before being surpassed by Osaka and Edo (Tokyo). This leaves Kyoto absolutely packed with history, knowledge, and just really cool things. Also, thanks to the insistence of Secretary of War Stimpson, Kyoto was removed from the list of targets for the atomic bomb attacks, and was largely (though not entirely) spared from conventional bombing by the allies during WWII. Because of this you can see a lot of pre-war architecture here and most of the historical sites are largely untouched.

/edumacation

Kyoto is densely populated with universities, and is a highly intellectual city. My first early sojourn into the city was for the second half of the Kansai Queer Film Festival in early September. The first half was held in a large theater in the very center of populated Osaka, right near a giant ferris wheel that dominates the skyline. As I couldn't make it to this part, I attended the second half sponsored and hosted by the University of Kyoto which was held in, to put it politely, a barn.

(note: not my pic, didn't think to take a pic of outside, thanks google images)

The place was, quite frankly, awesome. It was old and dusty inside, it felt used, it felt unique. I was really happy with the place. I was told not to take pics, but I got one ok shot before I was shut down.



We sat on some old tatami mats in the back of the theater and watched the documentary, which was a documentary on the treatment of trangender women in the United States Prison system. It was fascinating, as was the cute girl in the ridiculously awesome getup taking tickets at the door. Sorry, no pics of that part.



After that me and the others who'd come to Kyoto for the festival wandered the streets a while and ended up following the train tracks back to Demachiyanagi station after getting Chinese food for dinner. It was relatively uneventful, though I got to take a few good pictures.






As you can probably already tell, this photo warns of the dangers of feeding your Mogwai after midnight, or letting it get wet.



"Why?" Good question random vandal.


This is probably my favorite photo that I've ever taken. It just came out fantastic.



I started to play with the manual exposure settings.

This one too.

My second time in Kyoto was another exercise in unpreparedness. I arrived at Demachiyanagi station in Kyoto and tried to head for the moon viewing festival. I (somewhat predictably) by this point got lost, and instead just headed for a mountain, as it looked interesting. I ended up seeing a bunch of cool things and even finding a trail head that I fully intend to utilize in the future. For now the few decent photos I could eek out of the pitch black light will have to do.



I wandered up a series of very dark and quiet streets. Eventually I got too close to this large hill/mountain thing to really see it, so I just headed uphill. After wandering past a number of cemeteries and a few temples things thinned out, and got very very steep.
I was of course unphased and continued my trek. This continued for probably about a mile. At one point there were some lanterns at the side of the road.



I wandered in and was treated with a statue. It was kind of surreal in the silence and darkness.


Eventually the roads came to an abrupt end and I found only a trail continuing upwards. As I had come prepared only for a festival I took the less reckless way out and decided to leave the hiking in unfamiliar territory for another (better equipped) day.

Much to my surprise, however, as I turned around and began my descent I was treated with this.



A spectacular view of Kyoto from above. My apologies for the quality of this photo, it's terrible. I'm trying to remedy this, but for now that shall suffice. I wish desperately to return there with better equipment for even better shots from the summit. When those are available I assure you you'll hear all about it.

As I said, not nearly as daring or fascinating as my adventures in Ise, but exciting nonetheless. If you want to suggest a place for me to head to or give me some tips, props, or anything else be sure to leave a comment, it's nice to hear from people that they're enjoying my ramblings. Keep tuned in, as this weekend I'll be heading westward to Hiroshima, surely with camera in hand, and may head to other places in that direction as well depending on how the wind blows.

And as always, stay stoked friends


*Thanks to Matt who pointed out that the position on the map as up until the most recent edit was incredibly wrong. Please see the map now present at the top of this post for Kyoto's true position. My apologies.

Another Swift Assurance

Just checking in to let you all know for sure that I have not forgotten my promise to write about Kyoto soon. I have pictures and the like ready and prepared, but simply haven't found the time and motivation necessary to write a quality entry for you all this week. I am determined to do so either tomorrow or Sunday, so do check back soon for pictures and stories of the beautiful ancient capital of Japanland.

Sayounara for now mis amigos. Stay stoked.

DeLue