Tuesday April 16
One thing I forgot to mention from yesterday - when we are on the busses here, it is the same bus all day and the bus is locked when we get off. So we are able to leave things on the bus if we want to, which is nice.
After breakfast at the hotel, we board the bus for the train station and our trip to Miyajima and Hiroshima. I am very much looking forward to today as I am a WWII history buff plus my dad visited both of these areas when he was stationed in Japan in the Marines over 50 years ago. He was sharing his pics and memories as we prepared for our trip.
The AbD agenda for today -
—Shinkansen train Kyoto to Hiroshima and Miyajima
—lunch on own in Miyajima
—Torii Gate photo op
—Shinto Shrine and Buddhist Temple tour
—Hiroshima Peace Park
— Museum visit or fold Origami cranes
—return cranes to Peace Pavilion
—Okonomiyaki dinner experience in Hiroshima
—Shinkansen train back to Kyoto
We depart at 7:45 for an 8:30 train, even though the drive is only 10 minutes we cannot be late and will need time to navigate our large group through the station to platform. We went through another entrance to the train station rather than the main central entrance, so it was a breeze getting us through the station to our platform. Since we were there a bit early there was opportunity to take photos of the other Shinkansen before our train arrived. No time with our train - there is 90 seconds for departing passengers to exit and is to get on, so efficiency is the key.
—Shinkansen train Kyoto to Hiroshima - it was an hour & 36 minute train ride to Hiroshima, with three stops before ours. While the train moves very fast, it is not so fast that we can’t see things out the windows as we pass.
We are met by our bus and a local expert guide who will be with us throughout the day. We have a 30 minute bus ride through Hiroshima to the station for the ferry to Miyajima. Once on the ferry, it was maybe a 10 minute ride to Miyajima. We could see the island’s famous Torii gate as we approached; it is visible from the right side of the ferry. No worries if you cannot get a spot on the rail for photos on the way over as it will be visible from the left side on the say off the island. Caveats - we were on the 11:00 a.m. ferry over so it was not too crowded; there were a lot more people leaving the island on the 3:30 pm return ferry.
It is a beautiful day for Miyajima. Once on Miyajima, we had a short walking tour with our local guide through the town as we headed towards the Torii gate for photo ops. We took a group photo & then did individual family group photos. It was almost to low tide when we were there, so not a lot of water under the Torii gate, there were a few people who had walked out to get under it; we’d see a lot more people out there at the lowest of the tide during our free time.
After the photo stop, we went into the Itsukushima Shrine for a tour. It is a beautiful shrine that sits out over the water of the bay. Since it is almost low tide, we see mostly the shore underneath as we walk around. There are some stone lion statues and opportunities for more photos of the Torii gate, I took so many pictures, it will be hard to narrow it down to those I will end up keeping.
In case you are wondering what is the difference between a temple and a shrine, our rickshaw driver explained it during our ride yesterday - a temple is with the Buddha religion and a shrine with the Shinto religion. I keep them straight because Shinto and shrine both start with “sh”.
We were fortunate that our day on Miyajima included the first day of a three day Shinto festival, so we were able to see a bit of a Shinto theatre performance at the shrine as we walked to the exit of the shrine.
We are now on our own for lunch - we have about two & a half hours to explore the shops and food booths. And there are a lot of them - a couple of hours may not be enough time. Several adventurers had shopping bags with them today when we headed back to the ferry. With the festival happening, there were a few extra street food booths by the temple. And, believe it or not, there is also a Starbucks! We had a few Starbucks bags in our group as well with people picking up the Starbucks “we are there” mugs with Hiroshima on the mugs, to add to their collections.
While walking around the town before the hike, we saw a rickshaw coming down the path. Have to share a picture - it is a bride and groom on their way to their wedding at the shrine we had just visited. What a special treat to see them on their happy day.
There was an optional hike up to the Daishoin Temple for the last hour of our free time. About half of our group did the hike. It was not a steep hike and is all along paved paths; there are also some stairs. We were rewarded with some beautiful gardens and Buddha statues and more insights from our local guide. I’d recommend going if you can pull yourself away from the shops.
We are on the ferry back to Hiroshima and then on the bus to the Hiroshima Peace Park and Museum. We don’t have a lot of time in the museum, just under an hour. However, it is very doable in the time as it is not a large museum...unless you are someone like me who likes to read every description by every artifact and display. It starts on the 3d floor and we work our way down to the first floor.
Many did a quick look at everything. Some folks spent more time with the survivor interview videos where survivors talked about their memories and experience of both the bomb and after. This is similar to the Holocaust museums. I knew I wanted to see the artifacts in the special exhibitions area so skipped about half of the third floor and the second floor to spend most of my time there on the first floor. I was also the last person out of the museum for our group...first time they’ve been waiting on me. It was a sobering, thoughtful, moving experience. It might not be good or easy for younger kids to see some of the things and photos in the special exhibition area such as tattered clothing that family members had kept in home shrines as memories of lost loved ones before donating to the museum. I don’t know how often that is changed out, so later visits may see something different there. The museum is optional for those who might not want to go in.
We walked over to the 1000 cranes memorial and displays, past the Hiroshima Dome still standing in its aftermath state, and over to the Orizuru tower where we made our origami cranes. You can keep your cranes or leave them to become part of the cranes display; we chose to leave ours. We also had another group photo op here with the Hiroshima skyline in the background as we are up on the 11th floor.
It is back to our bus for our Okonomiyaki dinner experience in Hiroshima. While these can be found in most major cities of Japan, Hiroshima is known for them and the many different variations available. It was very interesting to see those being made and everyone said they were delicious. And while it is not always easy for diet accommodations while traveling and especially so in Japan where substitutions are not done, I was quite impressed that AbD was able to arrange an alternative version for me with the chefs as I cannot eat cabbage, the main ingredient in okonomiyaki. I was prepared with peanut butter & crackers but those were not needed.
We walked to the train station across the street for our ride back to Kyoto. Another observation about the efficiency of Shinkansen- there was some sort of medical situation in another car, and the train was delayed about two minutes at one station. They come over the PA to apologize for the slight delay, and we still end up arriving back at Kyoto exactly on time.
It is a long day, our train gets on at 10:14 and then it is another 20 minutes before we are in the hotel lobby. We have a later report time tomorrow, 8:30 a.m. which is nice.