My Deer Friends
Since I seem to have become the city correspondent and Zack the road correspondent, it seems I have some catching up to do.
Since I last posted we've been through Kyoto, and now it's our last night here in Hiroshima and we've seen and eaten quite a few things. Unfortunately I haven't had the time to sit down and write anything about them, mostly because the places we've been staying have been pretty busy, so I feel bad tying up the computer for hours. There is of course the Internet cafes, but trying to accomplish anything with free soft servce icecream available is almost impossible.
Japan has still been treating us well. Both Kyoto and Hiroshima are a lot more touristy than we're used to. I think my Japanese has actually gotten worse since we arrived in Kyoto as it seems that almost everyone can speak some english, all the signs have english translations, and we no longer get excited and yell "White guy!" when one walks past.
But with the tourists come the tourist attractions, and there have been no shortage of temples, restaurants and various other sights to be seen.
We headed to Kiyomizu-dera on our first day in Kyoto which was pretty impressive. After a long walk through a massive greaveyard in the blistering heat, we headed into the basement of the temple. We weren't even sure what we were going to see, but there was a line so we stood in it.
It turns out that we weren't actually supposed to see much of anything. The basement of the temple was completely and utterly dark. We stumbled along the corridor using the handrail for guidance, turn after turn I kept expecting my eyes to adjust and to see... something, but there really was nothing, just suprisingly cool temperatures and crushing darkness. Eventually we twisted around another corner to find a rock, dully illuminated and on something that allowed it to spin. I gave it a spin and made my way back out into the blinding daylight. Even though I have literally no idea what the significance of it all was, it was an interesting experience.
Heading further into the temple gave us a fantastic view of the city while we looked at the various charms available, including one specifically for leg muscles, which seems particularely well suited for us.
It turns out that we weren't actually supposed to see much of anything. The basement of the temple was completely and utterly dark. We stumbled along the corridor using the handrail for guidance, turn after turn I kept expecting my eyes to adjust and to see... something, but there really was nothing, just suprisingly cool temperatures and crushing darkness. Eventually we twisted around another corner to find a rock, dully illuminated and on something that allowed it to spin. I gave it a spin and made my way back out into the blinding daylight. Even though I have literally no idea what the significance of it all was, it was an interesting experience.
Heading further into the temple gave us a fantastic view of the city while we looked at the various charms available, including one specifically for leg muscles, which seems particularely well suited for us.
Coming down the other side of the temple we saw the three streams of spring water that give the temple it's name. The three streams of water are said to provide you with widsom, health and longevity, but some people consider drinking from all three to be greedy. I went with the middle one, and have no idea which of the three it was. I also paid two hundred yen for a plastic cup and stood in a line in the blistering heat for fifteen minutes to do it, so let's hope it was the wisdom one.
Our next day in Kyoto took us out to a zen garden that backed onto a bamboo forest. The carefully manicured garden, as well as the rock garden within it was impressive, but somehow I found the simplicity of a forest full of bamboo even more conductive to quiet contemplation than the zen garden we had walked through to get to it.
On our way out of the bamboo, a Japanese man stopped us and asked us each to write something in a notepad he had. He asked us to write any english proverb we could think of, which is surprisingly hard to come up with on the spot, if anyone has any suggestions let us know.. it would be nice to be prepared in the unlikely even that it happens again. If I remember correctly, Zack wrote "It's raining cats and dogs" and I wrote "Do or do not, there is no try". Either way he seemed appreciative.
We made our way across the nearby river and after a 30 minute hike up a mountain we arrived at the the monkey park, which actually turned out being worth the hike. Not only did we get to see monkeys, but we had a chance to feed them too. They seemed much happier than the monkeys stuck in a cage that we saw in Hokkaido. Jumping in and out of the nearby pool and lying aroud in the shade, they had it pretty good up there.
Most of the rest of our time in Kyoto was spent doing what we do best. Wandering around the city with no clear goals, only to end up at at an arcade or an Internet cafe. The city proper does seem quite nice, but doesn't have much of a personality of it's own. The one interesting section is the typical night life area where a quiet river runs down the middle of a street lined with neon signs. Hundreds of people slowly walking along enjoying the warm night, past places that somehow all seem to remain empty.
There's probably more that I'm forgetting, but due to the aforementioned bike touring time compression problem, it already feels like Kyoto was months ago.
Several long days later, and we're now in Hiroshima. While there's not nearly as much to see here as there was in Kyoto I'm really becoming fond of this place. It's touristy but not quite so much as Kyoto was. It seems to retain more of a Japanese feel, while still offering all the ameneties of a modern city.
While it feels a little bit awkward referring to something like this as a "tourist attraction" Hiroshima is of course known for being destroyed by a nuclear bomb on August 6th, 1945 and while the city has been completely rebuilt now, the A-bomb dome was left standing, and is continually preserved as a world heritage site in the state it was in after the explosion.
The peace park, the A-Bomb dome, and the Peace Memorial Museum are all well worth seeing and while from what I've read there was some debate about whether or not to leave the building standing, I have to say that it really does make you stop and think. Every time we have gone downtown we walk through the park, and every time I see the dome I'm reminded of what happened. Especially after seeing everything in the museum it's not exactly an easy thing to think about, but it's not something that should be forgotten.
Being here in person gives you a much more tangible idea of just how terrifying nuclear weapons are, especially when you factor in that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was considered small, by today's standards. I'll leave it at that, as this is really a whole other topic. Suffice it to say that it was one of the most memorable things I've seen in Japan.
Today being our last full day in Hiroshima, we made the trek out to the ferry station largely on the recommendation of Saeko and Dominic who highly recommended the fresh water eel that the area is famous for.
It was definitely worth the trip, thanks for the tip! I managed to track down some additional eel in bun format, which was also quite tasty.
Since we were right beside the ferry terminal, we made our way to Miyajima to see what it was all about. It ended up being a nice enough place. Had we been so inclined we could have hiked up the mountain on one of many hiking paths, or taken a cable car up to the top but we instead spent some time checking out the local craft shops, and the scenic spots closer to sea level.
Probably the most interesting thing about the island was the deer that seem to inhabit the town. While they are wild deer they're completely used to people, and more or less do their own thing and ignore us, except when they're trying to steal our bags and eat our maps.
We then made our way back to the hostel, did what bike maitenance we had to and headed out for Okonomiyaki, which is apparently famous in Hiroshima. It's sort of... well, it's whatever you want, all mixed together with noodles and fried into a sort of pancake with poor structural integrity. Sorry, I'm running out of time again and that's about the best explanation I can think of right now. This particular one had cheese, corn, squid, pork and some other things I can't remember buried inside.
I probably left some things out, but it's getting late so that's going to have to be all for now. We head out bright and early tomorrow morning, so once again this will probably be the last update for a few days. I'm not even entirely aware of where we're going at this point, but I'm sure Zack will fill you in.