Greetings from Hiroshima, Kyoto and Tokyo

Here's my second-to-last update about the holiday, I'll probably send the last one when I get back to Holland. We're flying back on Thursday already! In the beginning everything couldn't go by fast enough, but now it's almost time to go home, I want to stay longer! I especially wanted more time in Kyoto, that city is difficult to navigate so it's hard to see lots of things in a short time. Also having painful legs doesn't help! But more about Kyoto later. First, back to Hiroshima.

I ended my last mail on Thursday night. We went out to dinner and had okonomiyaki. It is often referred to as 'Japanese pizza', but only because it's round and you can put different toppings on it. It has nothing else to do with pizza. It's basically all kinds of ingredients fried on a teppan (frying plate) covered in mayonnaise. We both had pork wrapped in egg, mine also had a mochi (sticky rice cake) in between. It was covered in a sauce that tasted like curry ketchup and mayonnaise. It was nice, but a bit too greasy for my tastes... The place was on the 6th floor of a building. On this floor were only okonomiyaki restaurants. It's like walking through an alley with restaurants opening up to it on either side. The teppan are like a large counter that everyone sits on side by side. The people who work at the restaurants keep yelling at people passing by to entice them to come into their restaurant (they do that everywhere, we've learnt that it's not rude to ignore them, but I also seem to ignore people that ARE talking to me, like when I was walking in someone's yard in Miyajima XD) Anyway, the guys who worked at the restaurant we went to were nice, though, one spoke a bit of English so he asked us where we were from and how old we were and said he liked a band from the UK, from the 70s, that sounded a bit like 'Chaos UK' (heavy accent).

On Friday we got up early and took the train at 10:15 (25 mins) and the ferry (10 mins) to Miyajima. We could already see the big red torii gate from the boat, it was really exciting! First we walked to Itsukushima shrine, which the torii belongs to. It's super touristy there, but very beautiful. It was high tide, and then the shrine and the torii seem to be floating in the water. We then walked up to Daishoin temple, which was a lot more beautiful with a lot fewer people! Gosh, the treasures they had there... uneblievable! Miyajima is one of the most sacred places in Japan, so all the temples there are well-looked after. Daishoin has a few enormous sand mandalas made by monks from Tibet, it's been visited by the Dalai Lama and the Emperor, and the founder of Buddhism in Japan (the guy whose name I can never remember) is enshrined there, along with other famous historical people. Around the temple were all these nice subtemples, one with a hundred lanterns on the ceiling, and one with a path leading up to it full of little Buddha statues on the sides (I think there were about 200).

We took the cablecar up Mount Misen, the highest peak on the island (530 metres high, but we only went as high as 450 or so). The views from there were great, but it was a bit cloudy and rainy that day, so we couldn't see very far. We could see 'mainland' Hiroshima, though, and going up we saw the red torii and the pagoda nearby.

We didn't stay up long, because I was starving (should have eaten before we went up ><), so we took the cablecar down again and went in search of some food. But as we came by Itsukushima shrine again, it was low tide, which means the seabed between the shrine and the torii is dry and you can walk up to the torii! We did that, of course. I took my shoes off, because the tide wasn't completely out yet and I was still up to my ankles in water (which is wonderful when it's over 35 degrees every day) and lots of seaweed. :P Then we went to a little restaurant where I ate niku udon (udon noodles with beef) and Eddie ate niku soba (soba noodles with beef). It was delicious! I got a couple of souvenirs along the way to the ferry, and I got geta; the wooden shoes that are worn under kimono and yukata. Finally found a place that sold them cheap! They're surprisingly comfortable, considering you're walking on a block of wood. And then we took the ferry and train back to Hiroshima again. On Saturday I got up and ate the cream pan (bread) I had bought the day before. I had bought something a few days earlier and asked the girl what was in it, she sad 'cream' and it turned out to be butter. So I thought: cream pan = butter. Well, it turned out to be pudding. XD I had a pudding bun for breakfast. Nice, but yeah... XD Later we went out to the A-bomb dome; one of the few buildings still standing after the atom bomb exploded over Hiroshima and the only building that is still standing today (and will be preserved forever). Goodle A-bomb dome and you see what it looks like. It was a lot smaller than I thought. It's basically a ruin, but when you think of WHY it's a ruin it is very impressive. Behind it is the Peace Memorial Park. In it is a flame that always burns. It was actually lit from the fire that has supposedly been burning for 1200 years on Miyajima, lit by that guy whose name I can't remember. >< The peace flame will not be extinguished until all nuclear weapons are removed from the world. watching that, Eddie and I both commented that unfortunately it would probably not be extinguished during our lifetime. :( The Peace Memorial Museum is very impressive. It explains exactly what happened when the A-bomb was dropped, how it affected the people and the city, what the residual effects are, etc. It also explained something I was dying to know: why did America decide to drop the bomb on Japan and not on Germany? They played a mean game, though; despite several people saying it was immoral, they decided not to warn Japan that if they didn't capitulate, they would use the atom bomb. What I also liked is that Japan doesn't pretend to be innocent in all this; in the museum is explained what they did during the war as well. After visiting the museum we went to Shikkuen gardens. It was nice, reminded us of Koishikawa Korakuen gardens in Tokyo; because both gardens contain miniature replicas of famous places in Japan and China. But our legs hurt very much, so we went back to the hotel. On Sunday we had to take the dreaded train to Kyoto. The busiest day of traveling during the entire Obon festival, the day all the trains were reserved full, the day we had been dreading. But we miraculously had seats! We were super happy all the way to Kyoto! :D Lots of people got on at Hiroshima, because a lot of people travel to Hiroshima for Obon, as Obon is a festival that celebrates the ancestors and a lot of people died in Hiroshima, of course. So many people were leaving from Hiroshima, and since we got there about 45 minutes before the train left, we were at the front of the queue so we had seats! Yay! At Shinosaka we had to change trains, took a 20 minute regular train to Kyoto and then we were there. After checking in we went to the east of the city, up into the foothills, where there is an area called the Philosopher's walk. It is called that, because a famous professor of philosophy called Nishida Utaro (I did write his name down, so I'd remember it XD) used to walk there during his lunch hour almost every day. It also has a few famous temples along it. One of them is Nanzenji. This temple has a lot of room divider screens that were painted on by famous artists, hundreds of years ago. Some are even gold-plated. Very beautiful, but no pictures allowed. Around the temples are Zen gardens which are gorgeous. Entry fees were 500 yen, though, this is more expensive than anywhere we've been so far. The next place we stopped at is Otoyo jinja, a collection of little shrines that was very nice. And it was free, which we liked. We put some money in the Inari (fox) shrine to thank whoever is out there for getting us seats on the train! Then we walked to Ginkakuji, which means Silver temple. It is not silver, though; it is unfinished; the silver layer was never put on. So it is just a brown temple. XD it is a replica of the Golden pavillion though, which does have its gold layer. More about that later. The stroll garden around the silver pavillion is quite nice, so we spent some time there. This was also 500 yen. After that, we took the bus back to the station, which took us 45 minutes due to traffic! Kyoto only has two subway lines; one running south to north (and vice versa) and one running east to west (and vice versa). There are a few local train lines, most of which don't go near the station. Many people cycle there or take the bus. In the evening we went to Pontoncho alley, a small cosy alleyway full of restaurants. We missed the shrine there, though, I don't know why; it's hard not to see something there, the street is so narrow. XD We also went to Gion, which is the geisha district. We didn't see any geisha, but the stroll through the area was very nice. It's more traditional Japan than the big concrete buildings you see in every city. Near Gion is Yasaka shrine, which is very nice too; it has a big gate which is at the end of a big street, so you can see it from far away. Our legs are getting so bad, though. >< It's getting hard to walk for hours, like we did before. They just get tired very soon. On Monday I went out on my own, because Eddie just couldn't walk anymore. It's a good thing he didn't; it took me 5 hours to view 2 temples! First it took me 30 minutes to get to the Golden temple (Kinkakuji) by bus. No more buses for me. I don't do buses usually, because I get sick. I got so nauseous on this bus I kept contemplating getting off somewhere and walking to the temple. I would have if my legs weren't hurting so much. But when I got off the bus I had to sit down for about 15 minutes before I felt slightly better and was able to get going again. The Golden pavillion is very nice though. It's cheaper than the silver pavillion in terms of entrance fees (400 yen). It is covered in real gold, and it was redone in 1996 or so, so the current layer is still very shiny and beautiful. The stroll garden around it is very nice too. The only disadvantage is all the tourists. It's so crowded there, you can't really enjoy the views, because there's always lots of talking and people bumping into you. I bought a little charm for good health there; they were much cheaper there than at any other place I've seen so far. And for some reason I felt better after touching it. :) I also bought a charm for safety in traffic which I can hang in my car. :P I then went down the street to Ninnaji temple. Or so I thought. I got hopelessly lost. >< I ended up asking an old lady, but she said loads of stuff in Japanese and all I could gather was that I had to go back to the golden pavillion and take another road from there, or something. Then I came past some road workers and I asked them. Another old lady walking by made it clear to me that she would walk me there part of the way! This is the second time someone has done this for me and I am so amazed by their friendliness. It's like: well, I can't explain to you how to get there, so I'll just walk there with you. Most people in the rest of the world would be like: stupid tourist, whatever. Anyway, during the walk there, the lady kept yapping away at me in Japanese. I didn't understand everything, but I did understand she asked me if I was alone, so I explained my friend was at the hotel. She also commented on how tall I was. I tried to explain that everyone is tall in Holland. After about 15 minutes we got to a bus stop where there was a sign that pointed towards Ninnaji. She left me there and I found my own way. It was still an hour from there, though (it seemed so close to the golden pavillion) so by the time I got there I had been walking for 2 hours non stop and I was completely dead. A nice cup of tea at the coffeeshop by the temple did wonders, though. After that I had enough energy to view the temple complex. This also has a really nice zen garden and screens that were painted on by famous old artists. There are several other buildings, including a 5-storey pagoda and a big entry gate. I didn't have the energy left to do the miniature pilgim walk (in Japan there are 88 temples that are known as the pilgrimage temples; Buddhist monks spend weeks walking all over Japan and visit each temple. And behind Ninnaji is a miniature version of this walk which takes about 2 hours). I then walked for another hour down the street where there was a Japan Rail station; from where the trains did go to the station (no more buses for me). So when I finally got back to the hotel it was 5 hours after I had left. ><

That evening we went out again, though, because the 16th of August is the last night of the Obon festival and that evening, large bonfires in the shape of Kanji (Chinese signs) are lit on the mountains surrounding the city. Those bonfires were the reason we went to Kyoto last, instead of before going to Osaka, which would have made more sense, geography-wise. These past few days in Kyoto they had been selling pieces of wood that people could write their wishes and prayers on, and those are burnt in the bonfires to send them up to the gods.

We walked down the bridge and stood where a lot of people were already standing, thinking we could see the bonfires best from there. But the police made everyone get off the bridge at some point, sending us down to the river. An American guy called Fox started talking to us and the three of us decided to walk down the river together to where a lot of people were sitting. And at 8pm, we saw the kanji for 'big' light up on the hill we were facing. It was really cool! :D We walked a bit further down the river and saw another kanji, but I could only recognise the 'woman' part of it and not what was next to it. We crossed the bridge and just saw the tip of one other kanji bonfire. So very awesome!! After that it was back to hostel. We bought some watermelon on the way, that was yummy! :D

I just wish we had had more time and more energy in Kyoto. Next time I go to Japan I will go there first (and rent a bike) to see the rest!

And this morning we took the train from Kyoto to Tokyo. We still didn't see Fuji; the sky was blue but it was really unclear; lots of water in the air apparently. So I saw what I think were the foothills but I'm not sure. At least when we went from Tokyo to Osaka we could see most of the mountain. XD

Well, now it's about 4:25 pm and I am in Ikebukuro hostel in Tokyo. Our laundry is in the dryer. Tonight we are meeting Tomoki and we are eating shabu shabu. It's nice to be back in Tokyo! Tomorrow we are going to the Ghibli museum and the day after it's home already!! O_O It's been a great trip. I've taken about 1600 photos. XD But don't worry; I won't bore you with all of them (only mum and dad). When other people visit me (or I visit them) I'll narrow it down to the nicest ones. XD And of course I'll put the nicest ones online and send you all the link!