adVENture

I had an amazing time this past weekend. Everything went surprisingly well and the weather was gorgeous the entire time. The only thing that I didn't do that I posted early about was visiting Uwajima. I spent many many hours on buses, trains, and ferrys and I spent a lot of money but it was totally worth it. So, on with the stories and pictures:

BEPPU
This is the gigantic "ferry" that I took to Beppu (Kyushu) from Matsuyama (Shikoku). It was an overnight ferry from Osaka, so there was a hotel taking up most of the space inside.

I had about 5 hours in Beppu, so I bathed as much as possible. This is the first sand bath that I had right on the coast of the beautiful island of Kyushu. Beppu is one of the most geothermically active places in the world, so there are many onsens and a couple sand baths. For a sand bath, you get naked, put on a yukata robe, go outside, lay in a shallow hole, and the attendant shovels sand all over you. You lay there for 15 minutes, get up, wash off the sand, shower (traditional sitting shower style in an open room with others), take a dip in the onsen (like hot tub), and then put your clothes back on and go. The whole experience takes about 45 minutes, and it's very refreshing.




This was the second place that I went to where the sandbath took place inside. It is a very famous onsen called the Takegawara onsen. For some reason the second bath was more refreshing than the first.


MATSUYAMA
There are many things to do in Matsuyama, but I decided to skip a few things in light of future trips back. The Matsuyama castle is one of the coolest castle grounds I've seen so far. It is very close to the center of the city and there is a moat around the huge hill that the castle is on top of, there are huge gate doors, and there are gardens and museums nearby. The main castle is being reconstructed right now, but I still got some fantastic pictures. This is the chairlift without any harness or front bar to keep you from falling out. However, it wasn't too far from the ground.



The wall around the main castle grounds had many lookout windows that I thought were fun.


Just south of the city station is the house and burial site of the original Haiku poet, Masaoka Shiki. Here is his statue and a few of his haiku poems.


I stayed in a capsule hotel for two nights in Matsuyama. It is one of the few that allow women to stay there. Capsule hotels were originally created for business men that had stayed out late and missed the last train home. You are issued keys for your capsule (to lock from inside) and locker, yukata robe, towel, and slippers. Bathrooms and showers are shared, but the owner gave me a sign and a key to lock the shower from the inside while I showered. The bed was comfy enough and I didn't feel claustrophobic. The only thing I didn't like was the stale smoke smell which was unavoidable despite the rule against smoking inside the capsules and the designated smoking area in the lobby. It was about $24 a night.






MIYAJIMA
There's an island just across from Hiroshima called Miyajima. There is a Torii gate entrance to the Itsukushima Shrine there and both seem like they are floating on water when the tide is in. Since the gate is in the water, the entire island is considered sacred. Unfortunately I didn't stay for sunset, so my pictures of the gate are not as amazing as they could be. There were a TON of people there and the tide was out. It is lucky if you can get a rock to stay on top of the gate. I threw rocks for about 15 minutes with others and successfully got one to stay! Hopefully that will balance out the three mirrors that I broke a while ago.

These are buddhas at the Buddhist Daisho temple on Miyajima.

This is the 5 story pagoda behind the shrine.



HIROSHIMA
Hiroshima is a huge city without skyscrapers. It's gorgeous because it is made up of several peninsulas right next to each other, making it seem like there are rivers every ten blocks. It has a lively nightlife despite the fact that dancing is illegal after 1am. While I was in Hiroshima I was treated quite differently than I am in Naruto. I think they assumed I was a tourist with no iterest in Japan other than to see the Hiroshima sites. I can't really describe the difference, but it wasn't as friendly. I don't think it was completely due to my American citizenship because once I bowed or said something in Japanese or told them that I teach in Japan, they smiled and were much nicer.

I stayed in a hotel on Peace Boulevard which is lined by "Phoenix Trees" that survived the a-bomb despite their 600x200 meter proximity to the hypocenter and the prediction that plants would not grow for up to 75 years afterwards. I went to the Peace Park first. This is a statue of a mother shielding her daughter during the bombing, which is in front of the Peace Memorial Museum.

The Peace Memeorial Museum was a little hard to take and I'm going to spare you the more gruesome details. The documents between US scientists, politicians, and generals regarding the construction and detonation of the bombs were displayed as well as pictures of victims and the utter destruction that occurred. I definitely had history class flashbacks, but there were a few things that I learned. I learned that the bomb blew up 600 meters above the city, not on the ground. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was made of uranium while the bomb dropped on Nagasaki's was made of plutonium. The US originally began creating nuclear bomb technology partly because of Albert Einstein's urgent recommendations and the fear that Germany already had the technology. However, Germany was never considered as a place to drop the bombs, or so the museum emphasized. The US had a list of twenty Japanese cities that was eventually narrowed down to four. Hiroshima was first because it had good weather that day and there were no enemy prisoners of war being held there.

Part of the museum was dedicated to identifying and protesting the countries that still have nuclear weapons. The display also mentioned that if a full nuclear war were to take place, Earth would experience a "nuclear winter" because the extensive dust and smoke in the air would shield the Earth from the sun for a fairly long period of time. This would interupt planting seasons and especially warm climate habitats. So in the event that there are survivors, there would be a massive starvation period... among other things.

This is the cenotaph memorial for all of the known a-bomb victims. Their names are engraved in it. You can see the very low flame that will remain burning until all nuclear bombs on Earth are no longer in existance. You can also see the A-bomb Dome in the distance.

This is the A-bomb dome. Before the war, this building was the Industrial Promotion Hall. It was very close to the hypocenter of the explosion, but one of the few buildings that stayed relatively standing. It is the only pre-bomb building that remains today and great effort has been made to keep it just as it was immediately after the explosion.

I'm sure everyone remembers the story of Sadako Sasaki and the 1000 paper cranes. This is the Children's Peace Monument that was inspired by her story. Those cases are filled with paper cranes and some of the cranes the Sadako made herself are in the Peace Memorial Museum. There's a bell in the monument that you can ring for peace.

I tried to be a little artsy. This entire display is made of origami roses.

I went to the Ehime Prefectural Art Museum just to see Salvador Dali's Dreams of Venus. It was huge! I remember learning about it in Spanish class in high school. The museum also had a garden called the Shukkein Garden, which was created in the 17th century as a miniaturized version of scenes of Xihu, China.

This is the Hiroshima Castle. It's a reconstruction because the original was obliterated by the a-bomb. The castle had a proper moat around it, but there wasn't much else to look at.

This is the Catholic World Peace Memorial Church near the prefecture art museum. The priest survived the war and dedicated his life to rebuilding this church as well as peace on Earth. It is the first church that I have seen since I came to Japan, so don't worry Grandma, I did some praying.

This is the inside.

Hiroshima is famous for its style of okonomiyaki (Japanese pancaky thing). In Hiroshima they cook it for you - cabbage, pork, soba noodles (my choice), tortilla looking things, bbq-tasting sauce, and some other things that I didn't recognize. The Osaka version is the cook-it-yourself version that I described in my first food post.


In Hiroshima I also went out for tempura, but when I went into the restaurant, I had no idea that I had walked into the real deal. WOW. Turns out tempura is really a 15-or-so course meal with proper seasonings and sauces for each piece. Each "course" was one piece, but they came one at a time and each had a special process for seasoning. I had no idea what had happened afterwords because I was just in awe. Basically I had tuna sashimi and tempura (special kind of frying) fish, prawn (crayfish heads and tails!!!!!!), shrimp, sweet potato, onion, natto (Japanese dish of fermented soybeans), and ice cream. It came with salad, pickled vegetables, rice, miso soup, and sake.

Hiroshima also had the first Subway that I have seen since I got here, so I had a HUGE turkey and cheese sandwich with egg salad. The Japanese Subway menu featured many shrimp sandwiches as well as cheese, basil, or original fries. I have been missing my staple turkey sandwich, so it really hit the spot when I devoured it.

YAWATAHAMA
I came to Yawatahama and Honai to visit friends and take a day trip to Uwajima, but nothing was open the day that I wanted to take a day trip so I just spent time with friends. These are two of my three lovely friends in Yawatahama. I had a splendid visit with them.

Actually, I did attempt to go to Uwa-cho, but the directions that I had were all wrong and everything was closed, so I spent the hotter part of the day just wandering around the rural town before heading back to Yawatahama.

FUNNY STUFF
There's a lot of English written on stuff like folders, clothes, notebooks, bags, etc. The English is usually a little off or completely wrong, which makes shopping a very entertaining pastime. Here is a sweatshirt that my friend and I saw in Yawatahama. It says "Oregon state. That city is located in the western part of the United States." Grammatically correct, but Oregon is a state and why would you describe the location in the first place. Random. I got a sweatshirt that says "Spatial Rgchly" which isn't accurate in any way whatsoever. I'm thinking about wearing it to class for a lesson, "Okay kids, this is not a word."

This is a man practicing his golf swing in a corner, on the top of the huge ferry to Beppu.