Journey to the far distant and the not-so-distant past.

My first full day in Japan sets a cracking pace; an early start, a quick breakfast and waiting in the grand foyer of the New Miyako Hotel while throngs of foreign tourists mill about and trolleys piled high with luggage are wheeled out to the bus loading bay.

Our small group is shepherded across the road to Kyoto station by the JR representative to wait for the arrival of the shinkansen.  It’s all so easy when you have some-one to oversee a new experience, alleviating any uncertainty and concerns at not getting something as simple as the ticket barrier process right.  

The sleek white train glides into the station, the platform gates slide open, we file onto the train, find our seats and settle back for the two and a half hour journey to Hiroshima, where our guide will meet us.

The train speeds along; we pass houses set shoulder to shoulder against their neighbours, multi-storied apartment blocks in the usual beige, grey or fifty shades of brown and in Osaka modern, commercial high rise glass towers dominate the landscape.  Between tunnels, there are brief glimpses of sunshine, tortoiseshell tiled roofs, coastline, wooded hillsides and television aerials by the thousand.

Mickey our guide is waiting to meet us at Hiroshima station.  She leads us all to the waiting bus; with only one brief stop to look at the reconstructed 16^th Century Hiroshima Castle, we make our way through the city with its tramlines, six rivers and thousands of bridges to the ferry taking us the short distance to Miyajima Island. 

Hiroshima Castle

Time is limited on the island and we fit in a short tour through the shopping arcade (read souvenir shops) followed by a tour through the Itsukushima Shrine and the remainder of the time is ours to fill in as we choose.

The Itsukushima Shrine, registered on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List in 1996, is impressive structure not only from an historical perspective but also for its quiet beauty and an all-pervading sense of calm and peace.

The great Torii, which sets the boundaries between the spirit and the human world, stands out in the water, unless it is low tide.  We were there at high tide, when it looks as though it is floating on water.  It is a very popular site for photos; there was also a long narrow boat taking people out to have a closer look.

Photos above (left to right) glimpse of Torii Gate from Shrine - pagoda & Shrine - lamp & Shrine walkway.

Temizuya Water Pavilion. The place for the ritual purification ceremony, using the ladle to scoop water up and rinse each hand and then the mouth.  

A wedding party.  The bride was beautiful.  I threw all ideas of showing any  respect for the privacy of the wedding party and joined in the photo-frenzy with all the other onlookers!

Lunch, that all important time of the day, found most of the group seeking out whatever café took their fancy.  My choice was a café specialising in okonamiyaki, Hiroshima-style. The café was packed and some seats were reserved but I was lucky enough to get the last seat at the counter,  right in front of the cooking plate where you can watch your food being prepared and cooked.

Gotanda Shuji - the man making it all happen.

A close-up look at  the okonamiyaki as it cooks.

It's action stations on the business side of the grill, while on the other side the diners watch in anticipation of a tasty lunch.

After lunch there was some time to wander around and take in the sights or spend more time in the souvenir shops before we all gathered at the ferry terminal for the return trip to Hiroshima.

Deer abound on Miyajima Island and while I thought this one was very clever, opening a packet of snacks and eating them quick smart, it seems there is another side to the deer story.

In my final walk around I managed to find some blossom.  

The gathering dark clouds that had been working up to a rain storm turned on the water-works as we stepped off the bus at the Peace Park.  White handled, see-through umbrellas were handed out and we followed Mickey around by the A-Bomb Dome, listening and dodging puddles as we walked. Nearby is the spot marked as the hypocentre of the atomic blast and in the basement of a building close by, a man amazingly survived the blast, living until 1982. 

The A-Bomb dome,  Hiroshima

The Children’s Peace Monument is a statue of a young girl holding a folded crane and is said to represent Sadako Saskai, whose attempt to fold a thousand paper cranes in order to attain a return to health, inspired millions of people to send folded paper cranes with messages of peace to the Park.

Paper cranes at the Children's Peace Monument 

The nearby Peace Bell can be rung by visitors to indicate their wish for peace; the curved dome above the bell represents the universe and a step has to be negotiated in order to swing the rope which propels the log forward and strikes the bell.  Not easy for old, uncoordinated people…

With the rain becoming increasingly heavy we moved quickly towards the Peace Museum and joined the crowd filing through the exhibition rooms.  As we walked through the museum, our guide Mickey told me of her mother, who lived out of the city and had been visiting family in Hiroshima at that time.   She remembered nothing of the actual blast and seldom spoke about this terrible day except to say after she regained consciousness she made her way through the city to the port area and there were mountains of dead bodies everywhere.  When I saw survivor's drawings of the aftermath  in the main building, I realised how this terrible scene of death and devastation might have appeared to her.

A diorama depicting survivors of the A-Bomb show people, their clothes reduced to burned rags, the skin on the hands and arms peeling off and surrounded by fire and wrecked buildings.  It is a gruesome scene and one which has prompted much debate about how the horror affects children seeing this scene while visiting the Museum. Far less disturbing, but well worth visiting, is the audio visual display area where survivors relate their individual experiences when the bomb was dropped.  This is not a museum where you visit and go away with raised spirits. Quite the opposite.

 Outside the rain poured down in torrents, we hurried to the bus, dampened in body and spirit and our driver delivered us to Hiroshima Station. We said goodbye to Mickey, boarded another shinkansen. Night fell; monochromatic scenery flew by occasionally interspersed by bright, multi-coloured neon signs. At Kyoto Station our group stepped out onto the platform and dispersed into the night.

A very long day filled with a whole variety of experiences; beauty and calm, from hundreds of years ago and horror and destruction from relatively recent times.

Tulips in the Peace Park.  The very last photograph from my point and shoot camera before it quit working.