FINALLY have internet access and power so will try to do a more detailed break-down of the trip so far and include a few photos. Sorry if this is a bit rambling and boring. It's 12.25 at night and I didn't get to finish off today's blog entry so will hopefully post that and the next 24 hours' tomorrow night. Will maybe upload some photos and back-date them if this connection works. I want to ring home with skype but haven't been back at the hostel at a decent hour yet and don't know if the connection will hold up.

Jan 22
We got up in the morning, checked out of the hotel (and will miss the comforts of what was the best place we’ll be staying in, god it was amazing value, warm, cosy and just generally awesome… though the internet we paid to use the night before will not be missed, the keyboard was whacked), took the street car back to Hiroshima station and dumped our luggage off, took a train to Miyajima-guchi and the ferry across to Miyajima, gawping at and trying to simultaneously film/photograph the floating torii gate, apparently Japan’s most photographed site. Luckily we arrived when the tide was relatively high, so the gate did indeed look like it was floating; apparently at low tide it just stands there on the muddy bank. I’d read that there were relatively tame wild deer on Miyajima, but hadn’t realise how many there would be. Straight off the ferry and there were deer. Four or five were just past the ferry terminal, sniffing and eating around for food, completely adorable. Prue went nuts and started to photograph them left, right and centre, and we both had to fight the urge to feed and pat them. We were lucky that the day started off so relatively warmly, as walking around the small island was really beautiful in the sun, visiting the temple that had been started but left incomplete by Toyotomi Hideyoshi when he died, which had a number of large spoons inside for some reason, as well as lots of really really really old paintings, carvings and other different artworks hanging from the ceiling.

The views from the temple across Miyajima were breathtaking, with the massive, jagged, tree-covered hills climbing steeply in front of us amazing. There were hawks circling around above the trees and over the torii shrine, it really was a stunning view, which was impossible to capture on camera. Next to the temple was the 5-storey pagoda (which was completed), and an ancient-looking tree which had been pushed over and started growing sideways with supporting timber posts holding them up – Japan seems to do this a lot with any tree that looks a bit iffy. Down the twisting stairs and narrow streets through old traditional houses we wondered through tourist shops, past beautiful cobble-stone-lined streams and into the back end of the Itsukushima Shrine, where we paused to look at the prices of incense sticks as a shrine where somebody was praying. Out of nowhere a hawk swooped down, stole Prue’s bean-paste doughnut and scared the living crap out of us. It was like a flash of lighting, and must’ve swooped through a tiny gap between the tree behind us, the roof above us and the person near us to grab precisely the food and then fly off before we even knew what the hell had happened apart from a sudden whoosh and a wing flap to the head.

In a state of hilarious shock we wondered around the corner to see a hawk on top of the shrine roof eating something. Bird: 1, Us: 0. From then on Prue didn’t want to eat in the open and was by now starving. She didn’t want her hands butchered. We entered Itsukushima Shrine, which is really beautiful sitting on top of the waves as they reach the shore, and had maybe four of five small shrines, paintings and good luck offering rail… thingies, for lack of knowing the actual word. >_> People tied small wooden tags illustrated with the year of the tiger that they’d bought to rails with wishes. We had another photo in front of the Torii gate and were now getting cold, hungry, had very tired feet and so wondered back to the ferry dock. Our feet were starting to get worn out. We bought momiji, Miyajima’s signature food, which is kind of like sponge-cake stuffed with sweetened bean cake in the shape of a Japanese autumn maple leaf. I had lemon, cream, original and some kind of berry, and thinking about it I want more right now.

After catching the ferry and train back to Hiroshima, we wondered for a couple of hours (in the wrong direction for a bit thanks to my amazing *read: almost entirely non-existent* sense of direction) through Hiroshima, past the A-Bomb dome and took a few last photos (I know that its history is awful but it’s a really beautiful landmark in the park by the river at sunset) and swung by the hypocenter, which is a plaque on the sidewalk beneath where the bomb exploded mid-air, then back through Honodori before giving in to our aching feet. We headed back to the train station, picked up our luggage, grabbed some food and then got on the shinkansen back to Osaka. We ate rice balls on the way back, which I’d never had before, and now want lots of – they’re freakin’ delicious. Getting back from Shinosaka was a bit confusing (after having a bit of a hard time finding my suitcase locker again), and after waiting on the platform for a train (when you have a JR Pass you don’t want to pay for the subway) >_> Prue asked and found it was best to get back from Osaka to Shinimaiya… so we hopped on a packed train, I nearly took Prue out when I wasn’t holding onto the handles and flew forward, found our hotel and checked in. They didn’t speak much English and we need to change our reservation at the end to get a few days in Tokyo but the place is really nice and clean and new… OK so that’s irrelevant but I’m tired and rambling. We don’t have to take our shoes off to walk inside (YAY ‘cause that got annoying) and there’s an ELEVATOR too. =D And with that I’m off.

Jan 21
We got up in the morning to go to Hiroshima. Arriving at Shinosaka and getting our rail passes activated was pretty simple. I dumped my awkwardly large suitcase in a locker for the night, scabbing change off the nice old man maintaining them. The shinkansen was amazingly efficient, clean, comfy and just pretty much cool. It’s hard to judge the speed when you’re in it, but looking outside and seeing how quickly buildings fly past… wow. And that’s in built up areas, going up to Sapporo should be amazing. We got there in 1 and a half hours, took the cable car down the city, and walked to the hotel we’d found online but couldn’t make a booking. It was huge, 8 floors high and really wide compared to the rest of the skyline. We managed to book a room but couldn’t check in yet for a few hours, so wondered around the city, over a couple of bridges and walking down the river the wrong way to Peace Park. We wondered past a school group who started waving at us as I filmed, their school was pretty awesome and their uniforms like something straight from anime… I know that’s hardly surprising but they just look so awesome. Hiroshima as a city is beautiful, built over a number of intertwining rivers, with wide avenues and a low skyline.

Peace Park is serene and beautiful. Walking around the city it’s hard not to feel something, but it’s amazing how completely the city itself embraces its history; the park is a monument but at the same time there were school children playing, people walking dogs, cats wondering around and tourists from Japan and beyond. And friendly as hell local Japanese who talked about their own stories, family losses and then the Bible. Jehovah’s Witnesses apparently, but they were really really really nice. [“Do you believe in world peace?” “It’s a long time coming,” was my less than diplomatic answer, Prue’s was “I wish for peace one day,” which seemed to elicit a better response.] One of them said that her aunt was killed by the bomb at age 15, and when the family went to look for her they couldn’t find anything. That’s one story, and in the memorial hall there were hundreds more, all deeply moving and extremely sad. The horror of nuclear weaponry is almost beyond comprehension when you visit the memorial hall, the fact that nuclear weapons are still tested and hauled today is disgusting. All of the descriptions, shrines and monuments had a water element, with offerings of bottles of water and eternal fountains of water being there to quench the thirst of the victims of nuclear fall out, who died begging for water as a result of the nuclear fallout. That was the part that got me the most – seeing a bottle and glass of water in front of almost all of the shrines and some monuments. The long-lasting effects of nuclear fall out were marked in the memorial hall, with the names of victims who’d died as a result of A-bomb related diseases and conditions retold in the exhibits. 150,000 thousand people died instantly, with a further 200,000 slowly dying after as a result of the long-lasting effects of radiation in the proceeding decades.

The monuments around Peace Park were really moving, especially the Children’s monument, with thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of paper cranes stringed together and placed in rotating displays, from school children, charity groups and whoever else. I wanted to leave one but didn’t know how, and making it on paper from yet another Jehovah’s Witness’ pamphlet felt a bit wrong. (On a different side-note, the pamphlet was given by a nice old man pointing to the illustration at how all the races of the world were living together in harmony, with him telling me “here is a child playing with a lion, the way God intended”. I had dark and evil images of a lion mauling a child come into my head and had to stop myself from pissing with laughter before thanking him and turning away.)

The toilets around Peace Park are by some weird design domed, and on the bank directly facing the A-Bomb dome, it was a bizarre sight literally watching somebody pee. Japanese men’s toilets don’t have door. So we naturally got a photo of Prue taking a pee in them. >_>

The A-bomb dome is left intact and maintained so that it appears the same way that it did after August 8 1945. There was debate in the city over whether or not to leave it as a monument or tear it down, but in the 1950s they decided to leave it, and in the next decade it was protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It has a small park radius around it, with evergreen trees and a beautiful view of the river. The entire building is gated so that you can’t enter, but looking inside the wreckage you can see the frames of the rooms. The bomb exploded 580m almost directly above the building, and because the blast force was downward, all of the wall structure more or less remained intact. The heat was above 1500°C, with tiles apparently bubbling and blistering, many shattering and flying into the river (some later recovered and made into monuments) yet the building stands, more or less the only thing that was left in-tact on the skyline. Photos and stories from the impact zone were horrific. It’s hard to comprehend it while you’re there, because you don’t see the tragedy in the beauty of the city, but it’s a really deeply moving site. I always wanted to go there from mid-high school after studying the history of WWII, and finally visiting it was something I never thought I’d do. Walking back through the park, looking toward the building through the Cenotaph to the Victims of the A-Bomb, and then seeing the count-down clock in the visitor’s office of the number of days since the last nuclear test (I think it was something like 206, Prue thinks it was less), it’s mind-blowing to see how the world stage doesn’t seem to comprehend or care about the devastating effects of nuclear warfare. Anybody who calls anti-nuke protestors lefty hippies or whatever…. Go to Hiroshima.

On a lighter note on with what else we did that evening, wondering up Hondori (the main shopping strip) and trying to find the area that has lots of okonomiyaki (Hiroshima’s specialty dish), we asked a group of high school boys on bikes, outside the front of a karaoke bar. They were excited by the idea of taking us there (calling u cute couple >_>) and were hilariously bantering along the way, letting me film them and acting up for the camera. They told Prue she was Santa Claus because of her red coat, and the ringleader kept on telling us that he was a Japanese Idol. After we all nearly got run over on the road, they dropped us off out the front of a restaurant, where we pointed, ordered and had delicious Hiroshima okonomiyaki. The dish is area around Kansai is where the dish started, so we’ll need to try Osaka’s version and compare.

Jan 20
Today we explored the city’s two main areas, Umeda (in the north) and Namba (in the south). By a stroke of luck, the subway system has its “No My Car Day” unlimited subway pass for only ¥600, so before activating our JR Pass on the 21st we still managed to get cheap transport. The ticket machines are pretty easy to figure out, with English guidance buttons and fares determined by the distance you travel; you pay a set amount and if you’ve gotten it wrong there’s a ticket adjustment machine before the exit gates at your arrival station.

We began in Umeda, wondering around the (huge) underground train station for a few minutes while trying to figure out our exit, arrived on the street and got blasted by the smell of bacon cabbage. Pretty much immediately we headed for the GIANT Yodabashi electronics store, seven floors worth of electronics and toys... this thing was freakin ENORMOUS, with every level probably twice the size of a JB Hi-Fi. We were in awe... so many electronics, so much random crap, so many games not released here, so many DVDs, CDs, pointless electronic gadgets available in every shape, brand, size, colour and cartoon character. Plushie cakes and donuts to clean your screens with. Hello Kitty and Stitch light switch dangly things (a lot of Japanese lights seem to have those stringy things hanging from the roof). Everything.

The toy level was awesome, with a giant area of hundreds of puzzles and framed puzzles for different animations, and a capsule area the size of a large living room. I finally got told to stop taking photos but sneaked a few, of the random highly sexualised cutesy female figurines that were like a metre tall and sold for a few hundred dollars each.

After that we headed to the POKÉMON CENTRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!shift+11!!!!!!!! I think I could easily spend my entire holiday budget in there, and will be going back for a Pokémon umbrella, and want to find a shoulder bag in one of the stores... eventually we’ll see 5 out of 6 of them. >_>

Had KFC for lunch with a bizarre chicken pot pie, which was literally chicken filling and pastry wrapped around a plastic pot. Prudence had an apparently awful twister with gross garnish and melon-flavoured fanta. We spent some time wondering around the arcades, blowing money on UFO catcher machines, had an awesome time doing Purikura for the first time. The entire time we’d been at KFC Prue had left her coin purse in there (after thinking the machines were broken) and when we got back it was still there. Would not happen here. PURIKURA ARE FUN!! That is about it. And frantic.

After Umeda we headed south to Namba, where Prue decided that she needed new shoes as her feet were in agony. After a few hours of searching she settled for brown boots lined with faux fur, and what looked like polar bear testicles hanging from each side. Animals beware. The department stores are completely beautiful, with more staff on than necessary, no wonder the unemployment rate is so high. There’s people paid to direct the traffic on zebra crossings, like lollypop ladies for adults. The Pokémon Centre had more staff on than customers when we’d gone in to it, trying to promote their surprise gift bags and cookies. The novelty I’d been looking forward to of hearing IRRASHAIMASE soon turned to annoyance as every second storeperson you walked past said it to you no matter how long you’d been there for. And I finally bought a watch that Mum and Dad were getting me for my 18th, only took three years to find one I liked. >_>

Oh, and one of the most hilarious and random things to happen so far. We walked into a small entranceway, headed up a really long escalator and found ourselves in what I guess was a comic book store – lots of manga, figurines, trading cards and CDs/DVDs. Wondering around the shelves, hearing what sounded like godawful music being played, and turning the corner, to see an actual stage a couple of metres off the floor, with a guy in cosplay drag singing different songs from what I presume was TV or video games. Serious WTF moment, and only in Japan.

For dinner we had the bestest and most tastiest ramen ever. Then wondered back to the hostel, freezing and tired, did the awkward balance-slide-into-provided-slippers thing without touching the tatami, and slept.