Hiroshima

It's too bad that it takes an atomic bomb to wipe out an entire settlement in order to earn the title 'City of Peace'. The trip itself was an emotional roller coaster. Upon arriving in Hiroshima on Saturday morning, both myself and my travel compadres were running on about 2.5 hours of sleep (which included the hour and a half of sleep on the bullet train). We had been celebrating a birthday the night before that ended with watching a bootlegged copy of the new Harry Potter movie that we didn't start until after 1:00am. After a quick nap on my futon and a brief sprint, I made it with my friends just in time to get on the shinkansen and find our seats.
I had never been on a bullet train before and I had every intention of staying awake to enjoy the scenery fly by at 300+ km/hr. That attempt failed in about 15 minutes. I fully passed out and arrived at Hiroshima Station with only a vague recollection of the train ever moving.
I don't know how it worked, but the Tour company we booked through got us train tickets and hotel for a bit less than it would normally cost for just the train tickets. The hotel was pretty nice too and very conveniently situated (3 mins walk from Hiroshima Station).
After we arrived we unloaded our gear and then headed to Miyajima, which is regarded as one of the top 3 views in all of Japan. I'm sure at some point in your lives you've seen a picture of a big red torii gate 'floating' in the water. That's Miyajima. I'd seen it before many times but never known where it was.
It's on an island just outside Hiroshima and you get to take a fun little ferry over. The gate is like a spiritual entrance way to the temple behind it. When the tide is in it laps up against the temple so that the whole thing looks like it's on the water. I got a night picture later with the tide in that sort of shows this. If I knew how many pictures I'd be taking at night here, I would have brought a tripod. I've been getting pretty good at finding flat surfaces to rest my camera though.
Anyways, we spent the day checking out the touristy town and then we hiked to the top of this mountain behind the temple. I didn't know this before but apparently Miyajima has the largest wooden rice scoop in the world! I was beside myself with excitement when I found this out. I looked later in this book I got called '1000 things to see before you die' but I couldn't find it in there. I was astonished. Linda and I just had to pose in front of it. I don't think this thing has even touched rice though, it would take about 30 people just to move it. All around town you can buy rice scoops with 'Miyajima' written on it, but I didn't get any.
The hike was probably the highlight of the day for me, athlough I don't know if Linda and Yukie shared this sentiment. They looked happy in front of the torii gate before though. Actually I think they both really enjoyed the hike. The climb was pretty steep in parts, but it ended at a tower and you could see in all directions. There was supposed to be this pot that has been kept boiling for the past 1200 years in a little temple part way up the mountain, but we couldn't find it anywhere. Finally we asked one of the monks and he said that the little temple had burned down earlier this year!! I feel sorry for the guy that let that happen. But I suppose it is impressive they were able to keep a fire burning for 1200 years in a wooden temple withOUT burning it down.
It was getting dark as we got to the top so we took a cable car back down the mountain and took the train back to our hotel. None of us were feeling particularly energetic after the long day and minimal sleep so we retired pretty early.
In the morning we started our tour de Hiroshima. First stop: Hiroshima Castle. Not the original of course, because pretty much everything within several km's of the blast site was destroyed, but a 'reconstructed original'. Actually, it's interesting, things that were vertical (like telephone poles and cement walls) weren't destroyed by the bomb. The bomb detonated at an altitude of 600m so it took out anything between it and the ground. This is why structures like the Atomic-Bomb Dome survived with surprisingly little structural damage even though it was very near the target site. Wandering around Peace Memorial Park and especially going through the museum was pretty heavy. Hey Mark - I found that peace bell and rang it - only 23 years after you! I found it sad being there and thinking about all the pain and suffering that had happened right where I was standing. But I did appreciate the attitude of the city towards the tragedy. The focus really is on peace. There isn't any blame placed, no fingers pointed. The goal seems to be education about the past to prevent it from happening again. The mayor of the city even sends a letter of protest EVERY time any nuclear testing is done anywhere in the world, and Hiroshima started Mayors for Peace - an international organization of city mayors united against nuclear weapons.
All in all it was a great trip. One of those experiences that really changes your perspective.