well, I have been out of touch the last few days. A lot has happened. After yokohama we ventured over to Kyoto and stayed in what must be the worst hostel in all of Japan (but I will not slander them here in this venue).
While in Kyoto we saw the famous red gate temple (and walked 5-6 miles to traverse the whole area...this also includes the distance we walked after taking a wrong turn in the forest and ending up in a residential neighborhood).
Before that though, we did what might possibly be the highlight of the whole trip: fed monkeys. Atop a mountain in one of the smaller parts of Kyoto there is a clan of about 200 japanese monkeys (appropriately named Monkey Park). We made it up right before feeding time and were able to witness all 200 of them gorging on what looked like buckets of peanuts. Also, I should note that they are not caged...they just run around everywhere, at your feet. We were able to go into a special enclosed area were we could feed them dried fruits through a fence. The main rule was: do not make eye contact. Reminded me of Congo.
After another horrible night in our hostel, we finally got out of there and headed for Hiroshima where we stayed in a much nicer hostel where we met a bunch of germans who were in love with Harry Potter. (I also failed to mention that our first night in Kyoto, we watched Harry Potter on one of the largest movie screens I have ever seen).
But the Hiroshima trip was a bit more somber than the others. Early in the morning we went riding around town on some rented bicycles, ate some chocolate pastries called Choco-Cro (chocolate-crows, perhaps?). But the gaieties died away as soon as we went into the A-bomb peace museum.
As soon as you walk in you are confronted with a short, pithy movie that gives an overview of the atomic bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and ends with some dark musing over world destruction if "we" cannot eliminate nuculear arsenals.
And then they hit you with the 9 foot by 30 foot panoramic photograph.
A panoramic shot of the entirety of Hiroshima 5 days after the bombing. Complete and utter destruction. A few buildings remain, everything else looks like a desert. There are still people walking around.
At this point of my tour, a schoolbus of japanese school children (no older than 10 years old) come running in with full smiles, not so much engaged with any of the written word or photographs, but captivated by some of the toys that were recovered after the bombing. Their distant, un-touched world made it that much harder for me to be there.
Needless to say, I cried throughout most of the museum.
I took a couple of pictures around the A-Bomb Dome (one of the few original buildings from the bombing), but it was very difficult to convince myself that this was something I wanted to look back upon again and again.
If you get a chance yourself, it really is an amazing experience.
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From Hiroshima, my travels have taken me to Sapporo, the largest city of the Northern Island, Hokkaido. I just arrived this morning at 6:07am from 16 hours of train travel, and an overnight "sleeper" train. 3 of our 5 trains were 45 minutes late, so I was on edge the whole time wondering if our connecting trains would leave without us. Thankfully, they all waited.
Anyway, it is time we started to unpack, and go adventuring in this much cooler, Bay-Area like climate.
While in Kyoto we saw the famous red gate temple (and walked 5-6 miles to traverse the whole area...this also includes the distance we walked after taking a wrong turn in the forest and ending up in a residential neighborhood).
Before that though, we did what might possibly be the highlight of the whole trip: fed monkeys. Atop a mountain in one of the smaller parts of Kyoto there is a clan of about 200 japanese monkeys (appropriately named Monkey Park). We made it up right before feeding time and were able to witness all 200 of them gorging on what looked like buckets of peanuts. Also, I should note that they are not caged...they just run around everywhere, at your feet. We were able to go into a special enclosed area were we could feed them dried fruits through a fence. The main rule was: do not make eye contact. Reminded me of Congo.
After another horrible night in our hostel, we finally got out of there and headed for Hiroshima where we stayed in a much nicer hostel where we met a bunch of germans who were in love with Harry Potter. (I also failed to mention that our first night in Kyoto, we watched Harry Potter on one of the largest movie screens I have ever seen).
But the Hiroshima trip was a bit more somber than the others. Early in the morning we went riding around town on some rented bicycles, ate some chocolate pastries called Choco-Cro (chocolate-crows, perhaps?). But the gaieties died away as soon as we went into the A-bomb peace museum.
As soon as you walk in you are confronted with a short, pithy movie that gives an overview of the atomic bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and ends with some dark musing over world destruction if "we" cannot eliminate nuculear arsenals.
And then they hit you with the 9 foot by 30 foot panoramic photograph.
A panoramic shot of the entirety of Hiroshima 5 days after the bombing. Complete and utter destruction. A few buildings remain, everything else looks like a desert. There are still people walking around.
At this point of my tour, a schoolbus of japanese school children (no older than 10 years old) come running in with full smiles, not so much engaged with any of the written word or photographs, but captivated by some of the toys that were recovered after the bombing. Their distant, un-touched world made it that much harder for me to be there.
Needless to say, I cried throughout most of the museum.
I took a couple of pictures around the A-Bomb Dome (one of the few original buildings from the bombing), but it was very difficult to convince myself that this was something I wanted to look back upon again and again.
If you get a chance yourself, it really is an amazing experience.
------------------------------------------------------------------
From Hiroshima, my travels have taken me to Sapporo, the largest city of the Northern Island, Hokkaido. I just arrived this morning at 6:07am from 16 hours of train travel, and an overnight "sleeper" train. 3 of our 5 trains were 45 minutes late, so I was on edge the whole time wondering if our connecting trains would leave without us. Thankfully, they all waited.
Anyway, it is time we started to unpack, and go adventuring in this much cooler, Bay-Area like climate.
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