06/10/11 Friday

The next day I woke up feeling slightly better than death warmed over. My sore throat which had shown up on Monday in Fuji-Yoshida had now erupted into full-blown miscellaneous cold/flu-ness. However, this was our last day of exploration before we were planning to head back to Misawa, so I ventured forth anyway! Especially considering this day we had planned something I had been looking forward to in particular; visiting Osaka Aquarium!

We took the subway to Kaiyuka.

We walked what seemed like miles (my fluid-addled brain may have exaggerated the length of the journey) through streets of vendors trying to sell their wares. The media had blown the radiation and earthquake damage so much out of proportion that Osaka, who gets something like 80% of their income from tourists, was hurting badly - we were pretty much the only gaijin in sight. Keep in mind Osaka is some 200 miles away from the actual affected earthquake area, and yet we saw signs in English promising their goods to be "100% radiation free!"

We crossed by a pack of teenage or adolescent boys who shouted out "Lady Gaga!" as we walked by. I still don't know what to think about that. Coming closer to the aquarium we saw "Tempozan Daikanransha", one of the biggest ferris wheels in the world!

Michael got a chance to Free Willy!

Here is the aquarium (check out the crowds):

The aquarium was set up in a way that led you in circles around the building that gradually got higher and higher. Each segment of the circle represented a different area of the volcanic ring. The main exhibit, however, was astonishing.

The attention grabber tank at Osaka Aquarium. Yes, that is a (young) whale shark!

That friendly guy in the middle is my new favorite marine animal; the Bowmouth Guitarfish (seriously)!

There was also this amazingly graceful weird and wonderful thing called a "finless porpoise" (give it a few seconds):

We got to see them feed the rays (I apologize for the rotating camera - I didn't think through the fact that the video wouldn't auto-correct)!

We walked through all the exhibits and I started to feel much much worse. We decided to get a bite to eat at the Harbor View Restaurant which had yummy curry over rice which helped my congestion a little bit. The restaurant did indeed have a harbor view and we got lucky enough to see this cool boat (that is a dragon at it's head!):

As I drudged we walked back towards the subway station we came across this endlessly amusing sign:

I'm not sure whether to leave it to the Japanese or to leave it to McDonald's to have this...

Also I can't confirm if it's actual yogurt or merely 'yogurt flavor' ice cream...

We got back to the hotel (it was around 2pm or so) and I stayed there with the curtains drawn and SLEEEPPPPTT for about 8 or 9 hours before sleeping dead through the night. Meanwhile, Billy and Michael went off to have their own adventure... coming up next post.

06/09/11 - Thursday

We checked out of our hotel and took the train to Osaka. We decided to not stay the night at our next destination; Hiroshima, but called ahead to a hotel in Osaka; Hotel SunRoute Umeda.

From the station we took a taxi to our new hotel and checked in. We walked back to the station, took a local train to Shin-Osaka (yes, it is a different city than Osaka), bought bento boxes (Japanese lunches that come in a smart package), and took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima.

We ate on the train (let me tell you, it feels very Japanese to be eating bento boxes on the Shinkansen!):

We arrived in Hiroshima.

I realize that going to Hiroshima is controversial. While we were "planning" our route, I had a strong feeling that aiming for Hiroshima was simply the right thing to do. Having now been there, that feeling has been confirmed. I believe it was important for us to learn all we could about the bomb's effects, as Americans and as humans.

The first thing we saw out of Hiroshima station is this fountain:

Near the fountain was this sign:

If that's too difficult to read, it says that the station was completely destroyed due to the first atomic bomb in history, however the surviving employees got one of the station's lines back in operation on August 7th and fixed enough to shuttle in supplies and offer refuge for survivors on the 8th. People. The bombing was on August 6th.

The next thing we encountered was the odd sensation of walking into a textbook. Sure, we've read about the bombing in various levels of school and heard about the tragedy... walking on the streets of Hiroshima 50 years later, however, is another thing entirely.

Compared to all the green we've been seeing, Hiroshima felt browner and (dare I say) a bit scummier than the rest of Japan. I don't mean it was dirty, not by any means... just a palpable feeling of a town in recovery. Maybe the "scum" feeling was because the rest of the country was obviously built around the surrounding nature (as opposed to US's habit of knocking down the nature, building, and then putting in more aesthetic nature), and there were few natural plants as they had been destroyed...

It was so amazing that the entire city had been rebuilt in just 50 years. There is definitely something to be said about the Japanese people's strength.

We took the bus towards Peace Memorial Park to go through the museum.

There was a wonderful combination of old and new, like the rest of the country:

We learned later these trams were designed based off the original city, but they had re-designed the roads to make them more efficient:

Across the street from the museum was this beautiful memorial that made me wish I had more knowledge of what it represented:

From across the street, this is the view of the museum:

We saw the famous A-Bomb Dome as soon as the bus pulled up (we got closer later):

We paid our admission to go through the museum. They gave us digital audio guides with earphones. The numbers over the exhibits corresponded to the numbers on the guide, and you were lead through the museum at your own pace.

I only took one picture of the inside (it felt kind of inappropriate to take m0re, even though they were allowed (kind of = absurdly)):

Do you see the tiles on and in the curved walls below the replica dome? Those are actually bronzed letters, and there were many many more. Every time any nation in the world tests a nuclear weapon, the mayor of Hiroshima writes a letter to the country's leader, pleading with them to stop and to destroy their weaponized nukes. Uncomfortably, the most recent letter written was to President Obama.

We spent several hours in there. I won't go into too much detail, but I will say I have a profoundly different perspective and understanding on what the effects were. There were some very intense exhibits, but each was presented without malice or underhanded drama. They weren't trying to make anyone feel guilty or demonize anyone. They were simply presenting facts and images, and pleading that nuclear weapons are destroyed and never used again.

I will describe the most striking exhibit, to me, that will always stay in my mind. I won't be too graphic, but I have to share it (if you feel you must skip this part, then skip the next paragraph):

You are being led from room to room with intense imagery and remains. Between two of the rooms is a hallway. The hallway is decorated like the inside of a brick building, with fake windows on either side. In the fake windows are pictures of destroyed landscape as far as the eye can see. Think the outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada... where there is nothing but brown and black little shrubs and dust for miles. The fact that that type of devastation happened within a split second was felt as I walked through that hallway. That type of bomb is now the weakest nuclear weapon we (as in the world) have. Yikes.

We left the museum as it was closing.

Our next target was the famous A-Bomb Dome.

At this memorial, there is a fire which will burn until the last nuclear weapon on earth is disarmed and destroyed.

Underneath the Dome was a plaque which read:

"The A-bomb Dome is the ruins of the former Hiroshima Prefecture Industrial Promotion Hall which was destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever to be used in the history of humankind on August 6, 1945-

The atomic bomb was detonated in the air at an altitude of approximately 600 meters almost right over the hall. The explosion by a single bomb claimed the lives of over 200,000 people and the city area of about 2-km radius was turned into ashes. In order to have this tragic fact known to succeeding generations and to make it a lesson for humankind, the reinforcement work of the ruins has been done by the contributions of many people who desire peace within and out of the country. The ruins shall be preserved forever. August 6, 1967 Hiroshima City"

The Dome is a very controversial memorial in Japan. Some Japanese did not want to have such a constant reminder of the horribleness of that day, but others felt it was important as described above.

As we left the area (in a daze) we saw a group of girls singing and being filmed for a music video (talk about sharp contrasts!). I was almost offended with the cheerfulness after what we had just seen, but then my common sense took over and I realized that Hiroshima had the most outdoor music (perhaps even the only outdoor music?) out of any other city we'd been to. Perhaps such a joyous expression is most needed in Hiroshima.

Cathartically enough, we walked past the girls and were crossing a bridge when we came across this guy flat-landing (if you don't what it is, please watch the video!):

Then we took the bus back to the station, the Shinkansen back to Shin-Osaka, and the bus back to Osaka. In a moment of gai-jin-ness Billy misplaced his Shinkansen transfer ticket! We tried to slyly walk past the check-point, thinking 'hey, there's a lot of people, maybe we'll get..' NO. They found him immediately. After much explaining, he got a little lame temporary ticket (don't be fooled by the folded up map in his hand - that is his plan!) as compared to Michael and my super-responsible-adult-awesomeness tickets:

In Osaka we ate at this excellent restaurant (Michael just took the waitress outside and pointed to the stuff that looked (and indeed was) good):

It made us feel like this:

Then we roamed around Osaka for a while, but it was late and things were closing... we stopped by a convenience store and I got this picture which is just for YOU Pocky nerds fans! BEHOLD:

By the way - did you know you can call anyone a nerd so long as you say something like "BEHOLD" afterwords? Takes one to know one I guess.... anyway we watched Despicable Me in Michael's room and went to sleep. Why did they separate us so decisively??

Goodnight, Michael!

06/08/11 - Wednesday

We woke up and walked to the Kyoto Post Office for more cash (helpful hint: the most reliable ATMs for foreign cards are in the post offices of each town):

We then took the local train to Nara to 1) find the big Buddha inside the biggest wooden structure in the world and 2) find the deer park. On the train the boys were very helpful with letting me take a picture:

When we arrived in Nara we went to the help desk for some maps and found a little statue of Nara's mascot. I asked Michael to stop slouching and this is what I got:

We used the maps and walked our way towards the deer park, which was on the way to the temple. About halfway there we heard a ruckus across the street, and we came upon this scene (ooh the blog's first video! (please excuse my words of wisdom at the end)):

Turns out the deer park was bigger than we thought. There were hundreds of tame deer everywhere! There were wafers you could buy to feed them (we didn't buy any) and the schoolchildren would build up courage to hand feed a deer, then chicken out at the last second and run away (causing the deer to chase them), or throw it on the ground. Here's the warning sign we saw about the deer (why do they target old ladies and little girls??):

By the way that is a pretty average sign in Japan. Not the subject matter or the pictures, but the amount of kanji versus English. It is possible for non-Japanese speakers to get around, but have an open mind if you attempt it! We walked through the big park and here is some of what the views offered:

We eventually came up to the area with the temple, with little shops leading up to it. The first gate is in the background:

As I mentioned before, the bigger temples have two statues at their front gates; one with their mouth open and one with their mouth closed. This one had one of the most elaborate, striking statues I've ever seen, carved out of wood:

We passed the gate and walked towards famed Todaiji Temple, paid our admission, and entered the closed off area. The building behind me is the biggest wooden structure in the world (all the white shirts/black pants are school children)!

It was immense.

See the light brown box at the bottom of the above picture? That had incense burning in it as big as fire-pit logs. This is notable as it was the first temple we've seen with any incense at all! This is the view as you enter the door:

That would be the largest bronze cast statue in the world! I can't tell you how huge this thing was. It was in the center of the building, and the path led you around it in a circle.

The big thing behind the Buddha is all gold! In the back of the Buddha was the original Buddha, covered in gold...

There was an extremely intricate wooden carved statue...

A scale model of the building and the surrounding areas...

and another giant intricate wooden carved statue...

On our way out of the temple, we got stopped by a group of about 5 - 6 Japanese school kids about 12 - 13 years old, and they asked if they could interview us for an English assignment. Of course we were excellent role models: What is your favorite Japanese word? Michael: Kampei! Billy: Biru! What is your favorite thing to do in Japan? Karaoke! Favorite area of Japan? Shinjuku, Misawa. Afterwords they took pictures with us, gave us their sincere thanks as well as a folded paper crane for each of us.

We took the bus back to the station.

This is how you signal you want to stop on a Japanese bus:

Also interesting, the bus had an automatic ignition cut-off every time it stopped! From the station we took the train back to Kyoto. By the way, one of my favorite vending machine coffee brands was Boss Coffee. Look who the Boss turned out to be!

We were planning on heading to the Manga Museum and a famous street called Shinmonzen-dori as recommended by Hiroshi for antique shopping, but by the time we got back it was 5pm and everything was closing.

We went up the other side of the sky-walk and decided to eat at a "Spanish" bar, and caused a gai-jin faux pas by being too early for them to serve food, but they opened the kitchen early for us and we felt bad. The food was pretty overpriced and not very much of it, but it was barfood after all.

We went down to our regular toy store so Billy could buy the 2nd Audi RC body he had hesitated to buy the night before (an incredibly rare find even if it was on eBay), but the store's entire stock had changed since the night before - crazy to think about when the store was about the size of your average WalMart!

Then we decided to explore the area of Kyoto behind the station and the first building that we saw was a karaoke building (remember our ambling the previous night?)! We didn't go in but we also saw an Aeon Mall so we went in to go shopping.

We found a dedicated Crocs store:

Went to an amazingly cool fashion store but didn't end up buying anything.. I got the most amazing Vans ever. They are bright pink striped KNITTED high tops that only came in mens' sizes. We also came across the 2nd knitting store in Japan where I bought some yarn and a crochet book and ate a proper dinner.

We walked further and found a pet store. The animals were all behind glass (sound proof) and were super cute and..

INSANELY EXPENSIVE!! That kitten is 320,000 yen. That is about $4,350.00. That dog is 980,000 yen which is over $12,500! OK well it's on sale for 784,000 yen, only just over $10,000. Turns out that the store offered financing so you can pay around $100/month for your pet if you take it home today! They also sold chipmunks, flying squirrels, ferrets, and meerkats, but no rats, unfortunately for Michael.

Michael got some kickin' Adidas shoes and I confused the cash register lady greatly by asking her to throw away my old sneakers (I was now wearing the knitted Vans. This would turn out to be a mistake as the insides were vinyl and incredibly painful to break in. Oh well).

We got back to the hotel and played with our toy cars and legos. They had those turn-style coin machines you could buy toys from everywhere, but unlike in the US, the toys are actually good! Sure they cost a couple bucks, but they are actually well made. Mike went back to his room and Billy and I started to watch Sherlock Holmes (with Robert Downey Jr.), but it was 3am so we fell asleep instead.