Hiroshima and Miyajima

In some ways, Tokyo indeed is too much like New York. The most we have ever had to wait for a taxi, regardless of time or place (including one foggy night in an isolated area near Zushi) was five minutes. If the day is cold and pouring rain, however, it will take fifteen minutes. Fortunately, we had enough slack in our schedule to catch the high-speed shinkansen to Hiroshima, a four-hour ride.

The shinkansen train was surprisingly bumpy, making writing difficult. The Super Nozomi had a few interesting touches, like the two women, clad in uniforms of light pink and grey complete with caps, walking down the aisle to pick up trash. One passenger in the first row had his stocking feet up on the bulkhead, a surprising lack of decorum.

Hiroshima

Japanese museums tend toward the presentation of objects as noteworthy in themselves and not part of a larger context. The Peace Memorial Museum was a bit of an exception.

The museum had many visitors, judging by the crowds when we went and by the number of urinals near the museum entrance. Oddly, the crowd flow was surprisingly poor considering the assumption of crowds. The dioramas showing before and after views of the city were quite effective in conveying the extent of the destruction.

The most moving exhibits were the remnants of clothes and the tragic story of their owners. Interestingly, most (if not all) of the clothes were from children, possibly a deliberate choice to highlight how the most innocent especially suffered.

The museum did describe how Hiroshima contributed to the war effort and had a little history of the war. Part of one display mentioned the rape of Nanking and stated that estimates ranged from the tens of thousands to 300,000 with 100,000 as the most accepted number.

The exhibits about the destruction and human agony were understated. One section had life-sized figures with skin melting from the heat. Overall, the displays were not too graphic so anyone above 11 or so could tour the museum and learn but without having nightmares. That was no small feat. The museum lacks an effective display that represents visually how many people were killed – a set of small objects (the size of a one-yen piece) might do nicely.

The American story was reasonably well told, though it would have benefitted by including American (and Japanese) estimates of the casualties an invasion would have incurred. Unmentioned were the damage and deaths caused by the American bombing of other cities, bombing which killed more people than Hiroshima. There was also no mention of the deaths caused by the fire bombings of other Japanese cities and the total casualties of the war, numbers that would displace Hiroshima from its pedestal of tragedy. Hiroshima was a horrific tragedy, but sadly only one of many during World War II.
The difference was that one bomb destroyed this city while conventional destruction demanded hundreds of bombers. According to David Edgerton in The Shock of the Old, the cost of building the atomic bomb equaled the cost of building the B-29 fleets that devastated Japan.

Also missing was any mention of Nagasaki – you never would have known that a second atomic bomb was dropped in Japan based on the displays and the museum’s slogan “Hiroshima never again”.

What was impressive is how quickly some city services were restored – electricity in parts within three days – and how many buildings did survive. One graph showed the distance at which different construction materials survived the blast. Modern steel-reinforced concrete buildings did the best.

As well as the destruction and reconstruction of the city, the museum devoted considerable space to the poor treatment of the bomb survivors and to the city's peace and nuclear disarmament efforts.

The souvenirs were fairly tasteful, but not inspiring. We would have liked an inspiring graphic of the Peace Dome with “Never again” beneath it, but that was not to be.

Several monuments and memorials dotted the peace park, including one to Norman Cousins, the American activist, and several to children – children inducted into the war effort, a girls' school whose monument could display “E=Mc2”but not “atomic bomb” due to American occupation censorship, and Sadako Sasaki, the ten-year-old who died of bomb-induced leukemia. She tried to make a thousand origami paper cranes but died before she could reach her goal. The children's memorials consequently have adopted the origami crane as their symbol.

I can understand why: the cranes are easy to make (well, for most of us), inexpensive, and are as colorful as the paper that makes them. The result is long strings with scores of brightly colored cranes. The effect is not at all somber or depressing.

Temporary scaffolding covered the Peace Dome so engineers could test its integrity. The large building was constructed in 1915 and served as an exhibition hall. While damaged, it was still mostly intact, even though the blast occurred only 170 meters away.

The police were out in force around the peace park, a demonstration of force, closing two bridges to vehicles. We saw several troop buses and many riot police with protective helmets, protective gauntlets, and large plexiglass shields. There was no sense, however, of imminent action but more a sense of a routine display. Nonetheless, their presence seemed odd. As Alex remarked, “This is supposed to be a peace park, not a police park.”

The apparent cause was a caravan of sound trucks, decked out in patriotic slogans and flags, blaring loudly away. Was there a rally also? Whatever it was, the Japan Times did not mention it. Were we watching kabuki theatre by a nationalist group and the police whose only result was to cost the taxpayers some money (but justify the riot police) and inconvenience a few thousand motorists?

For lunch, we went to a highly recommended (and expensive) oyster restaurant anchored two minutes from the peace museum. While quite good and with the wonderful service we have come to expect as normal, the best dish was the raw oyster. Some foods are hard to improve upon. On the positive side, Alex was experimenting positively with tempura.

Later that day, Alex and I rode the train to Kure to see the Yamato museum. The museum had a 1/10 model of the gigantic battleship. The museum was really about the history of the naval shipyard at Kure, not the battleship. Kure was bombed multiple times during the war, reflecting its military importance.

The museum was quite correct in emphasizing the Yamato to attract people. How many visitors to Hiroshima would travel thirty minutes to Kure to see a museum of its naval shipyard? Judging by the gift shop, the Yamato was the big draw.

The Yamato played a minor role in World War II. In many ways, it was a T-rex, a dangerous but obsolete dinosaur. Aircraft carriers were the main ships of World War II, not battleships. On the other hand, the Yamato did die heroically, albeit uselessly.

The museum was rather good, showing a good display of documents and artifacts about the construction, life, and products of the shipyard. The museum was on the water and we could see a shipyard across the way with a massive tanker nearing completion. Basic information was in English, but we missed a great deal nonetheless. Overall, a surprisingly good museum.
Lisa and Caroline, in perfect juxtaposition, went to the Hiroshima Museum of Art to immerse themselves in European modern art and the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum to see a traveling exhibition of Bulgarian gold and walk through the Shukkeien garden. The plum trees were blooming and it was a sunny day.

For dinner, we walked to an Italian restaurant – Jyobanni in Katakana, which turned out to be Giovanni. Lisa had an in-room massage that rivaled anything in pummeling that we experienced in Thailand.

Sunday
We almost bought a 2-day pass because it included the ropeway, a cablecar on Miyajima to the top of Mt. Misen. Fortunately, the office selling them had a sign warning potential buyers that the ropeway was closed for maintenance while we would be there. Japan is full of such passes and other deals that need a knowing person to find and use them. Our trip was through a travel agent. The package price for train fare and two nights at a good hotel, the Granvia, cost little more than train tickets bought directly. The package was for only two nights. A third night would have been at the full rate, so we decided to go to a ryokan on Miyajima.

We walked in the morning to the castle (rebuilt like the garden after the war), which we decided not to enter because the kids wanted to return to the children's museum. They spent a good hour there having fun crawling through the climbing structure, which is big enough for an adult (I know, I clambered through, ably assisted by two children as guides), running the trains and playing with other exhibits. Lisa went to the Peace Museum, where we met her, took a mediocre Thai meal, then walked through a covered market street filled with familiar stores and shoppers to get a tram back to the station. During the morning, the sky was grey and chilly, but the rain only started after lunch. It quickly made up for lost time.

We picked up our luggage from the hotel, discovered an impressive shop at the train station that carried an amazing range of Western sweets and treats including Juicyfruit gum (the only place Alex has found it in Japan), European and American chocolates, and chips. Not at all what we expected to find.

We took a JR train to Miyajima-guchi, then walked the five minutes to the ferry. The way was well-marked, with an underground passage to avoid crossing the main street. Elevators on both sides for the handicapped and luggage-laden, though the exit from the train station was only steps (as was getting to the platform at Hiroshima).

The JR and another firm operate the 10-minute, 170-yen ferries. As we discovered after buying tickets for the other fairy, the JR operates slightly more frequently. Most of the ferry passengers walked on and sat in the enclosed seating to watch a film about Miyajima. The adults and Caroline sat outside, shielded from the rain and enduring the cold to enjoy the view of an island misted with grey and clouds coming closer by the minute.

As we left the ferry, a sign announced that the aquarium was closed for renovation and would reopen in 2011. No indication of where the inhabitants go during that time? Aquaria elsewhere?

The minivan was waiting for us (I had called before we boarded the ferry) and took up on a long, winding mountainous road to reach the Iwaso ryokan. With each curve, my heart sank as we moved further away from the ferry. We would be so isolated and dependent on the van. We wanted to see the torii at high tides at night and in the morning. Taking the minivan or a cab would consume much time.

The driver was superb, especially at parking. At one point, he backed into a space with only a few inches between a tree on the right and another van on the left. We were impressed – awestruck might be more accurate.

Iwaso was clearly a large-scale operation with two separate cottages and five floors of rooms as well as banquet rooms. A large lobby and several staff greeted us. The corridor to the room was softly lit, as was the anteroom to our room. We had a big room with two tables, one for eating and another, covered with thick blankets, for sitting together to stay warm. Traditionally, this kotatsu had a stove in the middle and a family would spend large parts of winter there staying warm while the rest of their house was unheated. This modern version had an electric heater under the table and was quite warm.
The room, jarringly, was lit by fluorescent lights, which cast harsh white light on the green walls. A small alcove, separated by sliding doors that served as semi-insulators, housed a table and two chairs that looked out on a creek and hill. It was beautiful.

The kimonoed guide who showed us the room next showed us the hallway, elevator, and stairs to reach the onsen and breakfast room. While most of the family relaxed and played cards, I took an umbrella and walked around. Unpaved paths led to the closed ropeway and a path to Mt. Misen. At one open area with a few picnic tables, a loudspeaker blared out music to a bemused audience of one. Unsurprisingly considering the rain and encroaching dusk, I was the only person out.

I returned in time to join everyone in the trip to the onsen. We donned yukata, making sure we wrapped the left side over the right (right over left is only for funerals), put on slippers until we reached the public area, then switched to plastic geta (instead of the original straw for these thick sandals) to walk to the onsen. Once there, we separated by sexes and doffed our robes. Entering the pool room, we sat on stools and washed ourselves before entering the hot pool.

Concrete was the main material, though the actual pool was a smoother material. The small outside pool looked out on the stream and hillside. To create a greater sense of closeness to nature, the outside room had a row of rocks planted in the concrete and the walk separating us from the outside was made of wooden logs and bamboo shades. Not quite the hot springs set amid moss-covered rocks, the image of the ideal onsen, but quite a good attempt.

We emerged in time for dinner, served in the room next to ours (quite unusual, as was breakfast in a common room: normally the meals are served in your room). The inn had a non-seafood option for the kids, so they ate well, though not as exquisitely as the adults. We ate, of course, in our yukatas.

After dinner, we dressed in our street clothes and boarded the minivan to see the red torii at high tide. This is considered the third most scenic site in Japan (the first two are Fuji and Kyoto). I was expecting a long trip to the torii like our drive to the ryokan. To our shock, the van stopped in two minutes. There was the torii, spotlit and spectacular. We were embarrassed that it was so close. The driver told us not to worry but we did convince him to go back and not to wait for us.

The torii is 16 meters high, big enough for a tourist boat to go through, which one did as we watched. We admired the torii through the rain for a few more minutes and walked back.

Lisa and Caroline took another hot bath, Alex spent 100 yen to catch up on his e-mail, and Jonathan walked back to the torii and then to the ferry dock, which was only a 15-minute stroll. During the stroll, he noticed several deer and passed a hotel where a taiko drumming demonstration filled the air with vibrant sound to the delight of the audience inside.
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Monday
The big question when we woke was whether we wore street clothes or yukata to the breakfast room. Nothing we had read in the guidebooks or experienced offered any precedent. We decided on yukata, only to glance in and find that the dress de jour was street dress. We hurried back and changed. The kids had a Western breakfast with cereal and scrambled eggs, while the adults maintained their daily consumption of fish and rice.

We checked out and walked to the torii, then strolled through the many buildings of the Itsukushima shrine, built on the water in 593 (and rebuilt in 1168). White-tailed deer wandered around too, looking cute and looking for food (which is why some shrubs had protective wires around them and signs warned visitors against feeding the deer). This shrine was the most picturesque we have visited so far, though some of the Kyoto shrines come close. We're unsure why, but possible reasons include:
*the shrine was a sprawling complex of buildings that did not feel cramped together
*the shrine was not jammed to capacity with thousands of visitors
*the shrine felt built on a more human scale without towering torii and gates or huge halls
*fewer souvenir stores surrounded the shrine (this option lost favor when we exited far from the entrance and found many opportunities to enrich the local economy)

As we walked through the shopping street, we realized how dependent Miyajima is on tourism. We also saw the world's largest rice scoop, a 2.5 ton behemoth that commemorated its creation on this island.

After walking around the shrine we took the kids on a nature walk along the side of a stream. We would have gone on the cable car but it was closed for maintenance. We saw several small waterfalls and went up the hill for over a kilometer from the first marker. The path was rather steep with many moss-covered boulders on the side. Since we had a train to catch and the kids were getting tired we decided to turn around before reaching the summit which was another kilometer ahead.

The kids stayed at the ryokan and read while we walked down to the pier, passing the torii one more time. Unlike our walk up the nature path, the shrine and streets were filling with tourists, presumably daytrippers from the mainland. The minivan brought the kids and luggage to the ferry precisely on schedule and we returned to Miyajima-guchi to ride back to Hiroshima