Hiroshima and Nagasaki

May 2^nd, 2015

Before I begin, I’d like to mention that Adam has started calling the trips I plan, “Janelle’s Boot Camp.”  At the end of every day of this trip, we were both exhausted.  Apparently, I just can’t seem to plan a relaxing trip, but at least we’ve started using public transit more instead of walking everywhere.  So brace yourselves as you may experience symptoms of exhaustion just reading about all that we did in one week!

We started our trip off by taking the train from Tarui to Hiroshima.  Once we got to Maibara (about 30 minutes away), we got to take our first Shinkansen (bullet train).  Our first ride was to Kyoto which took less than half an hour.  Basically, we just got comfy and then had to transfer again.  Our second Shinkansen- from Kyoto to Hiroshima- took longer and we were in a Green Car which is basically the first class car of the Shinkansen.  We bought these first class tickets because the other reserved seat tickets were sold out and we wanted to be able to sit.  Golden Week which consists of 3 national holidays is the busiest time of the year to travel in Japan, so we really didn’t want to risk not getting on the train.  The Green Car wasn’t anything too special though.  I felt very under-dressed in the green car. Everyone had such fancy clothes. Even the clothes that were casual looked expensive.

Shinkansen

The Green Car

We arrived in Hiroshima and took the tram to where we were staying. 

The apartment we stayed at was small, but conveniently located.  After dropping off our things, we set out to the Peace Park where we ate our lunch.  The Peace Park is full of different monuments to different groups of people who were killed by the atomic bomb.  We checked out a couple of these monuments before going to the Atomic Bomb Museum.  The Museum was well done.  It focussed on the atomic bomb and didn’t explain the context to why the bomb was dropped, etc.  The museum was mostly filled with belongings of people who had been killed or injured, etc. from the bomb.  For instance, there would be the remnants of a shirt and a write up that explained who the shirt belonged to and what they were doing at the time the bomb hit.  I found that it gave identity to the people killed.  So often bombs are dropped and we hear how many people died, but we have a hard time empathising because it’s just a number and we don’t know their stories.  Here, we got to see belongings, hear stories, and see pictures which gave people back their individual identities.  This museum was packed with people, we had to stay in the line we were in that filed slowly by the exhibits.  Despite that, the place was dead silent.  If anyone spoke it was in a whisper.  Some of the photos we took were quite graphic, so I won’t post them here.

People make paper cranes for peace and donate them.

Memorial for all the children killed by the atomic bomb.

Rose Garden

Tomb for all those that died in the bomb.
If you look closely you can see the A-bomb dome in the background.

St. John Paul II visited this museum.

Blessed Mother Theresa visited the museum

The Memorial Hall for all those who died

After the museum, we meandered through the park to the A-bomb Dome which is probably the most iconic image of Hiroshima.  It’s a building that partially survived the atomic bomb.  While there was dispute about whether it should be torn down (some people didn’t want the reminder, others thought it was a good reminder, etc.), it was left standing and they have now done some work to reinforce the walls from falling. 

The A-bomb dome

A beer festival was happening in Hiroshima, so we checked out the beer gardens.  I’ve never been in beer gardens in Canada, but I thought it was interesting that not only was I not ID’d, but there were also children and families at this event.  They had extremely overpriced beer with reasonably priced food booths. They also had a stage with some entertainment.  We didn’t end up buying anything but we did enjoy the free entertainment for a bit.  In other news, we also discovered that the men’s porta-potties don’t have doors on them, so there was a whole line of porta-potties where people could see men peeing.  We thought it was weird…

May 3^rd, 2015

On Sunday, we walked to the Cathedral for World Peace, about a half an hour walk from where we were staying.  We attended Mass and had some prayer time.  Pope John Paul II visited this Cathedral, so there’s a statue of him. 

Then, we went to Sukkei-en Garden.  It’s a beautiful garden and quite large as well.  Luckily, a lady who spoke English started talking to me and told me that we could drink free green tea today in the garden, so we went and had some with her.  There’s a tree in this garden that managed to survive the atomic bomb.  This tree is quite famous now and seeds from it have been sent all over Japan and planted as desires for peace. 

The tree that survived the atomic bomb.

We walked back to our place which took quite a while since there was a festival with a parade going on.  While walking, we were looking for a place to try Okonomiyaki.  We ended up trying it right by where we were staying.  Okonomiyaki has a bunch of cabbage in it, pork, sauces, soba or udon noodles etc.  It’s pretty good and you eat it right off this grill in front of you.  Hiroshima is famous for its unique type of Okonomiyaki.  As far as I can tell, which isn’t very far, Hiroshima’s Okonomiyaki is different because they add noodles.

Parade

Okonomiyaki being made.

Later that afternoon/evening, we checked out the flower festival.  All along the Peace Boulevard and in the Peace Park, stages and food vendors were set up.  We watched some pretty interesting performances as you can see in the pictures and captions.

These guys had ribbons on their hats they did a dance with while playing their drums.

Karate- they were breaking wood and bricks.

A Dragon dance performance

May 4^th, 2015

We went to the Cathedral first in the morning and then set off for Miya-jima.  Miya-jima is an island hence the –jima “suffix.” I didn’t actually clue into the fact it was an island until we had to take a ferry to get there.  It’s very close to Hiroshima.  We took the tram and Adam noticed a guy beside him wearing an Oilers hat.  So, he asked him, “Do you speak English?”  Turns out that this guy and his girlfriend are from Alberta, but living in Toronto and we passed the rather long tram line chatting with fellow Canadians.  What are the chances eh?  (Yes, the “eh” is a joke.)

Ferry to Miyajima

We arrived and took the ferry to Miya-jima.  Miyajima is famous for the Itsukushima Shrine.  When the tide is in, it looks like the shrine is floating and when it’s out you can walk under the Torii Gate.  Since we don’t find shrines very excited anymore, we didn’t go in, but only looked from the outside, which is basically all there is to see in Shrines anyways.  Miyajima was packed with people and deer!  However, unlike Nara where people buy crackers to feed the deer, they don’t have cracker vendors here.  We opted to eat our picnic lunch of onigiri on the opposite side of the shrine since there were less people there.  Onigiri is a rice ball stuffed with mystery food and wrapped in seaweed.  Or at least it’s mystery food for us who can’t read the labels.  It’s always kind of hit or miss if we’ll like it or not.  We had onigiri two lunches in a row since they’re cheap and convenient.  On the second day, Adam traded me his onigiri saying that it had egg in it.  I don’t know what it had in it, but I did decipher some pieces of shrimp.  Unfortunately, for him the trade resulted in him getting the onigiri with some kind of fish eggs which apparently tasted like cardboard.  Needless to say, two days of onigiri was enough. 

On Miyajima

The famous Torii Gates

When the tide is out you can walk right under the gate.

Now, let’s go back to Miyajima.  As we were finishing eating, I saw something brown out of the corner of my eye.  I turned a little more to see a deer grab our lunch bag.  I screamed because I was startled and jumped up.  Adam faced those deer head on and grabbed the plastic bag and the wrappers from the deer’s mouths as they kept grabbing anything they could.  We started to walk away and the deer followed us.  Finally, they realized they wouldn’t get any food and went to harass some other people.  So between, hawks, crows, and deer, it’s very difficult to have a peaceful picnic lunch.  (Just wait until you hear what happened with the cat and crow in Nagasaki.)

The deer culprits following us.

After eating, we hiked up Mt. Misen which brings you to the highest point on the island.  The hike was 90 minutes of stairs all the way up, it was hot and humid, so you can imagine how much we were sweating.  It was a good workout and we were rewarded with gorgeous views of the surrounding ocean, islands, and mountains.  There you go, one more example of why Adam is calling it “Janelle’s Boot Camp.”

A cool tree

We had our umbrellas because it was raining in the morning.

That night, we tried a different place for okonomiyaki and checked out the peace park all lit up at night.

Elementary students made these with wishes for peace written on them.

Giant paper cranes lit up.

May 5^th, 2015

We said good bye to Hiroshima and headed for Nagasaki on the Shinkansen.  We arrived at the station early since we weren’t sure how busy it would be and we didn’t have reserved seats for our firs train.  It ended up being fine and we got to sit until we arrived in Hakata.  In Hakata we transferred to a Limited Express Train.  We had reserved seats on this train and it was our first time on one.  It was sure fancy, they had big reclining leather chairs and hardwood floors.  The train ride was 2 hours.  By the time we arrived in Nagasaki, we were both grateful since despite all the comforts of this train, we were both quite nauseous. 

Leather seats and hard wood floors

Limited Express Train

As we were staying only 1.4 km away from the station, we walked with our luggage to the hostel.  We had a private room and it was sure nice.  I’ve stayed at a fair share of hostels in my day and this was pretty top of the line as far as I’m concerned.  As it was already 3pm when we arrived, we didn’t have much day time left to sightsee.  We settled on going to Nakamachi church.  Nakamachi church has a garden that commemorates 16 martyrs, one of which is the Filipino St. Lorenzo Ruiz.  Some of the martyrs were religious, some were lay, and some were children.  The church was really beautiful.  After visiting the church, I felt like we really started the pilgrimage portion of our trip.  As you’ll see Nagasaki prefecture has a rich and sad Christian history.

Statues of the martyrs

Afterwards, we went to see the Megane (AKA Spectacles) Bridge which turned out to be very close to where we were staying.  This bridge was built in the 1600s and is the oldest arched stone bridge in Japan.  It got its name because when the bridge reflects in the water it looks like a pair of spectacles. 

Spectacles Bridge

May 6^th, 2015

We rose bright and early-ish around 8am J and headed for Oura Catholic Church.  There are two Oura Catholic Churches- one has unfortunately been turned into a tourist attraction, so they built another Oura church across the street to hold liturgies.  We first visited the one that is used as a church.  Oura Catholic Church is really famous.  When Japan opened its doors to the outside world, two French priests (Fathers Louis Furet and Bernard Petitjean) came and built this church in 1863. After the church was complete, fourteen Japanese Christians came to the church and professed that they were Christians to Father Petitjean.  He wrote to Rome about this miracle.  Japan had suffered horrible Christian persecution for 250 years.  People were put into groups of 5 to watch each other- essentially to report if anyone was Christian or became Christian.  There were signposts posted all over saying that Christianity was illegal and how much money you would get for turning in a priest (500 silver coins) vs a believer (100 silver coins), etc.  They made Fumie (holy images made of bronze) and every year in Nagasaki prefecture (which was the area most impacted by Christianity) and some other areas they would make everyone trample these images.  If you refused, you’d be killed as a Christian.  We saw a book of penance with prayers that the hidden Christians would use after trampling these images.  All people were required to be registered at a Buddhist Temple.  So, the Christians made their statues of Mary and Child look like bodhisattvas and worshipped in secret.  With such intense persecution, no wonder it was considered a miracle when Christians were discovered in Nagasaki.  Unfortunately, after the Christians revealed themselves a whole other round of persecutions started throughout Japan and many Christians were martyred.  After this persecution, the rest of the world gave Japan heck (or something like that) at which point at the end of the 19^th century Japan declared religious freedom. 

Oura church is beautiful, but unfortunately it’s no longer a place of prayer.  You have to pay to enter and inside the church they have a recording on loop that I’m assuming tells the story of the church. 

The Hidden Christians revealing themselves to the priest.

Near Oura church is the house where St. Maximillian Kolbe lived during his first year in Japan.  He lived in Japan for 7 years and for the latter 6, he lived at a different place in Nagasaki.  St. Kolbe with his comrades started printing Christian pamphlets devoted to Our Lady one month after they arrived.  I was pretty impressed that they started this just one month after being in Japan, they must have studied Japanese before coming.  We got to see all these pamphlets published from the first until todays.  It was great to see how this work has continued and learning a little about the missionary work St. Kolbe did.

The fireplace in St. Kolbe's first house in Japan.

After some lunch of hamburger and steak, yup that’s what we had J , we headed to Glover’s Garden.  On the way we ended up finding a museum in the old Divinity School right by Oura Church that told the story of the Christian persecutions and it was free!  I learned a lot in there.

Glover’s Garden is a bunch of European traders’ family homes.  After Japan opened its doors to the world, foreign trade increased.  We got to learn a little about these families and see the Western style homes.  I was pretty impressed with the amount of stuff they brought from their respective countries to make their home in Japan more familiar to them. 

I had planned to hike a mountain by Glover’s Garden, but we were both so tired, we just called it a day. 

May 7, 2015

We started off the day with a visit to St. Domingo Church Museum.  It’s a free little museum that is basically the excavated site of the old church with a few artifacts that were found and displayed.  We then went to the 26 Martyrs Monument.  If you’re Catholic and like me, every year you see St. Paul Miki and Companions Memorial come up.  Each time, you search your memory trying to remember if they were from Korea or Japan or somewhere else in Asia?  Well, I won’t be forgetting who they are any time soon.

St. Domingo Church Museum

St. Paul Miki and Companions were paraded from Kyoto all the way down to Nagasaki where they were crucified on a hill in 1597 where there is now a memorial.  Some were children, lay people, priests, etc.  We went to the museum which is right behind the memorial and got to learn the stories of their lives and their death.  What always surprises me is the faith of children.  There was the story of one boy who was singing to God on his cross.  They also had Christian artifacts like a breviary from Avila in Spain that was huge and beautiful, and coins from B.C. with pictures of Caesar on them.  They had two reliquaries as well.

Monument to the 26 Martyrs of Japan

After the museum, we decided to eat our picnic in the park right by the memorial.  As we started to eat a cat came up and started to bug us for food.  We tried to shoo it away.  Then a giant crow landed near us.  We decided to move at this point which was a good thing too since the crow started bugging the cat for the food it thought the cat had gotten from us.  A small conflict ensued.  We ended up going into the church by the memorial and praying and seeing the relics, before settling down to eat on some steps a little ways off with our eyes alert to any animals.  Sometimes, it’d be nice to eat in peace.

St. Philip Church gained its inspiration from Gaudi.

Right by the Memorial for the 26 Martyrs is a museum about Japan’s war crimes, the Oka Masaharu Memorial Nagasaki Peace Museum.  It’s a small museum that consists almost entirely of photos and newspaper clippings.  The goal of the museum is to raise awareness about Japan’s role in the war and to get Japan to apologize and pay some compensation to the survivors.  Unfortunately, Japan hasn’t done that yet.  The images we saw were brutal.  We learned about how Koreans and Chinese were taken from their homes and forced to work in Japan coal mines and other forced labor, living in poor conditions with hardly any food.  We learned about the comfort women stations where women were taken from the Philippines, Korea, etc. and put in these houses where Japanese soldiers would rape them.  When we arrived in Japan, we saw on the news how some Korean women were asking for compensation for being forced to be “comfort women.” From the sounds of things, Japan hasn’t done anything.  Although there was limited English in the museum, it was good to see another perspective on the Pacific War not from the Japanese perspective.  We still need to learn more about the war since everything we learned made me think of more questions.

Now, you might be thinking that that’s enough for one day and it was, but we still went to Dejima.  When Japan closed itself to the world, they maintained some trade with the Dutch.  They built this fan shaped island in Nagasaki for the Dutch to live.  No Japanese were allowed to enter the island except for some courtesans and translators.  The Dutch weren’t allowed to leave the island (and in fact the majority of them stayed on their ships and didn’t go on the island at all) except for the yearly trip to Edo (now Tokyo) to thank the Shogun (the leader of Japan) for being able to continue trade.  It was really interesting to learn all about the trade.  For instance, the Dutch introduced the camera to Japan and now Japan has the best camera brands in the world.  The Dutch also introduced foods like cabbage and strawberries to Japan.  The introduction of cabbage really surprised me since Adam and I have gotten so sick of cabbage that I’m not buying it anymore.  It’s cheap and you can eat it raw or cooked, so I was putting it in everything and we were probably eating it twice a day.  Who knew it was foreign to Japan?  Anyways, after Japan was forced to open to the world by the American Perry, Dejima became part of Nagasaki and the ground was filled in.  Now, they’re rebuilding Dejima and have made it back into an island museum type village. 

Dejima

May 8^th, 2015

We took public transit for the first time in Nagasaki!  We took the tram up to where the atomic bomb landed.  First, we visited the atomic bomb museum.  There was quite a bit of overlap with the Hiroshima museum, but the Nagasaki museum gave more perspective around the war and a global perspective of nuclear weapons.  They had a whole section about nuclear weapons testing and the dangers of this and on work being done towards nuclear disarmament.  I didn’t know that nuclear weapons have been tested all over the world and how that affects the environment, etc.  They had information about the hydrogen bomb which is crazy more powerful than the uranium and plutonium bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  (Yes, I used crazy more powerful, since I can’t remember the number.) 

Memorial

We left the museum and went into the Hall of Remembrance.  It had this water/pond thing to answer the cry of all those who died from the atomic bomb begging for water.  The Hall of Remembrance remembers all those who died from the bomb.

Hall of Remembrance

We then went to a small little museum about Dr. Takashi Nagai.  This doctor was a convert to Catholicism.  He got leukemia from doing x-rays to try and eliminate tuberculosis.  Unfortunately, because of the war they didn’t have x-ray film, so he examined the x-rays directly.  From this continual exposure to radiation he got leukemia.  He told his wife he didn’t have long to live.  Soon after, the atomic bomb killed his wife and children, he was away from the home and survived.  He worked hard until the end of his days.  He’s now a “Servant of God” on the path to canonization.  What really struck me about the museum was his words that took responsibility for the war and didn’t play the blame game.  He also talked about taking responsibility for peace now. 

Next, we went to the Urakami Cathedral which was destroyed by the atomic bomb.  Dr. Nagai and others helped rebuild it.  In fact, at the time of the atomic bomb a priest was hearing confessions in the church.  Unfortunately, everyone was killed.  It was a good break to pray in the Cathedral because seeing and learning about all these tragedies and human suffering was very emotionally taxing for me.  I felt like prayer was a way to refresh, to give everything I had learned to the Lord, and to pray for peace. 

Urakami Cathedral

We finished the day off by seeing the peace statue and the a-bomb center.

Peace Statue

Hypo-center of the A-bomb

May 9^th, 2015

We just had the morning, but we made the most of it by going to the Nagasaki Art Museum.  The museum was small and not really worth it, but it was raining, so what else could we do.  For lunch, we tried Champon which is famous in Nagasaki.  It’s basically Ramen with seafood and some extra toppings.  It was delicious!  Ours had clams, octopus, and shrimp for the seafood portion.

Art Gallery

Champon

And that’s a wrap.  This trip gave both Adam and I some closure to our stay in Japan.  We have less than two months left now and I think this trip helped us both feel like we’ve seen quite a bit of Japan and we’re ready to go back to Canada.    

Gero and Sekigahara

May 1, 2015

This past Saturday, Adam and I went to Gero.  It takes a long time to get there, even though it’s only 140 km away from Tarui.  It was another hot and sunny day.  The train ride was especially beautiful as it took us, at a nice slow pace, through the mountains along a river.  The river was a beautiful bright blue colour.  We left at 8:30 am and arrived at 11:13 am.  We went to the tourist information center which was totally worth it as we got 10% off coupons for where we were going.  Then, we walked up along a creek to Gassho Village.  Gassho Village is like a Fort Edmonton or a Heritage Park.  There’s this really old town called Shirakawa-go which is a World Heritage Site because of all the old houses.  They took some of the houses from that village and reassembled them in Gero.  Since Shirakawa-go is rather inaccessible from Tarui without a car, going to Gero was a good chance to see this style of house. 

Gero

We arrived at the park gate at 11:50 am and immediately went into the Shadow Play theatre.  We watched a play about how an earthquake in Gero caused the hot spring to move.  Then, an egret came along and led the people to where the spring was.  The egret turned out to be a bodhisattva and they built a mini-temple for it.  Although we couldn’t understand the play, we were given a synopsis in English and could get the just of what was happening.  The play was performed using shadow puppets behind three different screens.  After the play, they showed everyone how to make a couple different shadow “things” with their hands.  Then, came the grand finale!  They showed a bunch of different shadow animals chasing each other across the screen and then changing into other animals.  It was pretty cool.  Unfortunately, you aren’t allowed to take pictures or videos. 

Inside the Shadow Play Theatre

After the play, we had some lunch and continued to explore the rest of the village.  The most famous house called Ohdo house took 13 years to build and has 4 stories. It’s from 1833, but was recently given a new roof.  You could only go up to the second floor and I’m not sure how the other floors worked, except that from the outside you could see windows at each floor. 

They also had a giant 170 m or something slide that you could go down for 100 yen each.  We considered doing it, but it didn’t look big enough for adults unfortunately. J

The roof in the house

In the Ohdo House, you can see how there are four floors.

By the creek in Gero

After the village, we went to an Onsen (a hot spring bath).  From the Shadow Play you may have gathered that Gero is famous from Onsens.  It’s basically a resort village in the mountains.  There’s free hot spring footbaths everywhere and a multitude of onsens to choose from.  They even have a free one by the river which requires bathing suits to be worn. 

Adam and I chose an onsen.  A French couple went in before us.  The women’s bath was pretty much empty except for the French woman and me.  As I’ve been trying to get over my timidity of speaking French, I decided to strike up a conversation with this French lady.  Interpretation: While hanging out completely naked in a hot spring, I decided that know is as good a time as ever to practice French. 

We finished the day by hanging out by the river and checking out the free outdoor onsen, although we didn’t go in.

On Sunday, we went to Japanese Mass and then took the train to Tado.  From Tado station, we walked to Kiso Sansen Park (3.5 km).  We were hoping to see the tulip gardens, but, unfortunately, they were all dead already.  We could tell that it must have been quite spectacular when they were blooming though.  There was some kind of kids’ day going on and so the park was loaded with families.  They had entertainment too which included a clown and belly dancers.  I know, belly dancers… at a children’s event… in Japan…  The highlight of the day was that I bought an ice cream cone out of a vending machine.  How cool is that, ice cream in a vending machine?

On the walk to the garden.

Kiso Sansen Park

Families everywhere!  Some flowers too.

A mascot of somewhere

Monday, I was invited to go for a picnic at a peony garden with a friend.  It was really beautiful.  After a while, my friend informed me that now we will go to a different park for a picnic.  I thought it was so classic.  It’s like I never really know what’s going on or what’s going to happen.  At this park, I got to see lots of misteria flowers.

Peony Garden

My friend Tomomi and her daughter Yui

Misteria flowers, the bees love these guys.

Wednesday was a national holiday.  Adam and I were planning on another big day of sightseeing.  We headed to Sekigahara which is the town right next to us about 6km away.  We decided to train take the train instead of biking.  Sekigahara is where the most pivotal battle in Japanese history took place.  It was the battle that finished unifying Japan and started a Shogunate dynasty that lasted about 300 years.  It was a battle between the East and the West.  The East won mostly because one of the warlords on the West side had secretly agreed to become a traitor and join the Eastern forces.  Two of the other West warlords’ troops didn’t do anything at all.  So technically, the West should have won, but being three warlords down, the East won instead.  It’s a pretty brutal history and if you want to know more, you can google it and get a much better explanation. 

We saw her walking around in Samurai costume, so we asked to take a picture with her.

Outside the museum

We visited the museum and different important battle sites.  In the museum, we got to see all these old documents that showed how the rich and powerful ruled and had so much information on everything happening in Japan.  We saw documents on who runs the inn, how many in each family, how many servants, and how many bushels of rice produced each year, etc. We saw a signpost stating that Christianity is illegal and how much someone would be paid if they reported a Christian. 

Christianity is illegal document.

Campsite of one of the armies.

The main Western warlords campsite

Sekigahara is a beautiful rural town.
 It's even more rural than Tarui with only 8000 people.

There was a bunch of art pieces in this little "peace" park.

An interesting thing mentioned in our pamphlet about the warlords was that the warlords who lost the battle were forced to commit suicide. However, one of the warlords was Christian, so they had to execute him. 

We had planned to go on to a festival in Maibara, but as we were both tired, we returned home. Since we’re leaving on a week long trip, I think that was a wise choice.  Travelling all the time can be very tiring.