Day 58 in Japan - Early Dali, Coffee and Shinkansen home

Today, Sam and I got up a bit early because I couldn't sleep, and I wanted to drop our bags into lockers at Hiroshima train station so that I could head off and explore the city a little. Hiroshima seems to have some fantastic Art Museums - the Hiroshima Art Museum has a really amazing collection of French impressionist painting (like seriously, every French painter you've ever heard of and then some), but Sam and I opted to go to the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum to see works from artists who have had some ties to the prefecture. On the way, we found this wonderful installation, which we assume was an inspired statement on the automation of modern life, the increasing distance between members of society, and a good way to get snacks.

The Coca-Cola company's "Jito hanbaiki" (2009)

It was also a very impressive collection, and we saw works from Dali (it was the Persistence of Memory - I swear it! But it had an extra panel with a giraffe on fire, and I'm sure it must have been another version by Dali or something - the most famous Dali painting in the world wouldn't be in a small museum in Hiroshima with no real security, would it?), Man Ray, Picasso, Mex Ernst, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Alexander Calder, Jeans Arp, Henri Laurels, Ben Nicholson, Picabia and a bunch more Western artists. As well as these, there were lots of wonderful works from Japanese artists from the area. Sam and I particularly enjoyed an exhibition of ceramic sculptures from Sato Satoshi. No photos (of course - although I did get one of the Dali painting, so email me if you want to see it), but it was a really nice and really air-conditioned peacful few hours. We had a breakfast-lunch at a nearby bakery, then caught up with Wendy and Dan back near Hiroshima station. We went on a big trek to find this awesome coffee place that Dan's phone told us about - it was called Green Coffee, and I recommend anyone who is missing decent coffee goes and checks it out if they are in the area.

Brianna Thompson - "The Impermanence of Pastries" (2010)

Sam and I headed for our trains home - first a Nozomi shinkansen to Okayama, and then a Kodama to Nishi-Akashi. Then a normal old local train back to Okubo, but we got to stand right behind the driver and watch him driving. It was pretty sweet.

And it's right down the middle please, hold on tight, get out your money and stop that fight. 

Food Highlight of the Day: Green coffee from Green Coffee shop in Hiroshima was like a little taste of home - still not as good as Melbourne coffee, but better than anything I've had in 2 months.

Day 57 in Japan - Hiroshima Peace Park

Got up and headed straight to the Peace Park (after free coffee and hostel chats, of course), with a stop along the way for a conbini (convenience store) breakfast. It was a lovely, sunny day, and we stopped for a few photos before delving into the air-conditioned horrors of the Hiroshima Peace Museum.

Cranes folded and left at the Hiroshima Peace Park

There's not too much to say about the Hiroshima Peace Museum. It's completely sad and tragic, and I cried when I read the stories from mothers whose children had survived the initial blast only to come home and die in their arms. And then I kept crying for most of the rest of the exhibitions of the belongings found in the wreckage, or donated by families of those who died over radiation poisoning over the few months after August 6, 1945. No one around me was crying and I felt like a complete idiot, but I couldn't stop myself. I'm just going to put a bunch of photos up so you can see a small number of the things that were in the museum. It seemed slightly disrespectful to be in there snapping away, so I really didn't take too many photos - just a few to remind myself of the things I saw.

Hiroshima a few weeks after the blast. Everything
within about a 1-2 km radius of the epicentre was completely
flattened, except for a few building which survived the ball of fire.

The museum was pretty crowded because it was a long weekend.

The clothes that a mother had to cut off her daughter after
the 13 year old managed to walk home through the fires and
chaos of Hiroshima. She died an hour or so after getting home.
These clothes were melted to her skin in most places. 

The epicentre of the blast was actually up in the air,
shown by the red ball here. 

One of the saddest things about the stories of the blast was... well, everything. But something particularly tragic was that there were so many children outside working right near the epicentre of the blast. They had been conscripted by the government to demolish a bunch of houses in the centre of the city to create firebreaks in case the city got bombed. There were many hundreds people outside in the blast radius at the time, and thousands and thousands of people died from it, but seeing the tiny uniforms and lunch boxes and caps was particularly heartbreaking.

This is the picture of Sadako Sasaki - the girl who folded
one thousand cranes to try to wish away her radiation-related leukemia.
This is on top of the Children's Memorial in the Peace Park, where
millions of cranes are left by visitors each year.

The A-Bomb Dome - if you look at the picture of Hiroshima after the
blast above, you can see this building is one of the few things
that remained near the epicentre. It's the only building
still standing today, and is an eerie reminder of the past.

After the sadness of the Museum, we walked around the Peace Park taking photos and making a bit of small talk. We went down into the cool darkness of the Hall of Remembrance, and looked at the 170,000 tiles that make up a panorama of the city just after the bombing - approximately one tile for every person who died as a result of the bombing. We read stories and looked at drawings made by survivors. We looked through pictures of people who died in the blast. Bells were rung, time passed and we all started to feel a little bit less depressed as the day wore on, but it was definitely a sombre day for us all. 

Dan, Wendy, Katie and Traci and I all went up to Shukkei-en Gardens in the afternoon for a bit of tranquility and to watch the sun set over the beautiful traditional Japanese garden. We saw turtles, fish jumping high up in the air, bamboo forests, crab battles, a pagoda, traditional tatami rooms for tea ceremony and a dude whose fantastic garden-watering seems to have made it into almost every photo I took. 

Shukkei-en Gardens in Hiroshima

When we all met up again (in a park with a free jazz performance and some interesting smelling drains), we went for dinner - more Hiroshimayaki! This time we went to the main drag and ate at a place with about 50 Hiroshimayaki restaurants packed into a few buildings next to each other. There were 3-4 floors of restaurants, and no empty chairs anywhere! We finally managed to squeeze ourselves into two restaurants, and feasted on the delicious, noodley, eggy, cabbagey pancakey delight (with cheese for Sam and I). With beer.

Itadakimasu! Dan, Wendy, Katie, Christine, Miriam, Traci, Sam and I.

Of course, no night out with gaijin in Japan is complete without a little bit of drinking, so we wandered the streets to find somewhere that would be able to hold all 8 of us. We ended up in a fantastic little cocktail bar, where I got to drink Tanqueray gin and tonics! It was fantastic. After a little while, a small group of us headed to another izakaya, for a few beers, some karaage and edamame. We ended up being really late home, because we stopped on the bridge to watch the huge fish jumping (can't figure out what they were), and talk about politics, people and the owrld in general. Quite an appropriate ending to the day, really. 

Low light, bottles behind bar, old business man with
suspiciously good-looking girlfriend *cough*hostess*cough*
 - yep, musy be a cocktail bar.

Food Highlight of the Day: Hiroshimayaki - the local Hiroshima version of Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes) are absolutely delicious. Two pancakes studffed with fried noodles and cabbage and a bit of pork, smothered in a worsterchise/BBQ sauce, and then topped with spring onions and mayonnaise. Drooling in memory right now.

Day 56 in Japan - Bullet train and Miyajima Island

Today, we got up early-for-a-Saturday (about 7:30), and dragged our sleepy butts to the closest shinkansen station to us. From Nishi-Akashi station, we caught a bullet train - the fastest kind of bullet train, called the Hikari - to HIROSHIMA! We had a conbini-bought breakfast on the train of sandwiches and a chocolate donut. I love living in Japan :)

A Hikari Shinkansen (or a Disney-designed duck?)

Once we got to Hiroshima train station, we met the other JETs that we were going with. First, we met Wendy and Dan (from Kobe and Himeji). Then we caught Miriam and Christine (from Ikuno and Aioi). Then Wendy's friends from New York, Katie and Traci (now from Kyoto and Fukui). And finally, the creepy guy who stood and looked over our shoulders and listened and stared for a full hour before following us onto the tram to our hostel. Miss you, creepy guy! On the tram, we met about 20 school kids from Toowoomba who were in Japan for a few weeks, and were making a pilgrimage to the Children's Memorial in Hiroshima to deliver a few thousand folded cranes. They were really nice kids. We also lost the creepy guy, which we were really grateful for.

We got ourselves to J-Hoppers in Hiroshima, dumped our bags (they have odd check-in times - before 11 or after 3) and then went in search of food. And food we found, in the form of Hiroshimayaki! Okonomiyaki is Japanese-style pancakes - an eggy/pancakey/omlettey mess stuffed with cabbage and noodles and deliciousness. Hiroshimayaki is the Hiroshima version of the food - it has more cabbage and is in neater layers. And it is absolutely delicious. We found a really great place near the hostel, and ate to our (tight arse) hearts content.

The whole gang waiting for our lunch

This is the delicious Hiroshimayaki after some minor chomping.

We got ourselves two-day passes to the Hiroshima transport system that meant that all of our streetcar, ferry and cable-car travel was covered. So we made the most of that right up front by taking ourselves off to Miyajima with our afternoon. Miyajima is an island which is about a 1 hour tram ride, and then a 15 minute ferry, from Hiroshima train station. It is actually called Itsukushima Island, but it's nickname (Miyajima) means "Shrine Island", and seeing as it's basically famous for it's shrine, now everyone knows it as Miyajima. Well, actually, I lied. It's famous for three things - it's oysters (kaki), the deer (shika) that are the "messengers from the spirits" that roam the streets and eat bag and train passes, and the beautiful floating torii gate out the front of Itsukushima Shrine. We saw all three, and then some!

Deer on Miyajima

First view of the floating torii gate.

First, we were mobbed (a little) by the deer on the 15 minute walk from the ferry terminal to  Itsukukushima Shrine. Then we saw the torii gate, and didn't care about the deer anymore. We paid our money and went into the shrine. The tide was lowish but on it's way up. Spent quite a while hanging around the shore near the gate.

View of the floating Torii gate from Itsukushima shrine at low(ish) tide

Itsukushima Shrine

Sam and Bri on Miyajima Island

The red floating torii gate was beautiful.

After a lot of photos, and a bit of a rest and a conversation about birth (no births or deaths used to be allowed on the island, as it was a sacred place - there are still no cemeteries on the island), we walked up hill to Momiji (maple leaf) Park and the ropeway to the top of Mt Misen. Got on one of the last ropeways to the top of the mountain and sat and enjoyed the view for about 20 mins (we didn't see any monkeys - some of the girls were disappointed, but I was secretly relieved - they are vicious and scary when they want to be). We were on the last cablecar back down the mountain.

View from the cablecar back over Hiroshima

View over the Seto Inland sea from the top of Mt Misen

Artists depiction of the cablecar ride

We bought some beers at the bottom of the cablecar, and walked back to the ferry station. Met some absolutely gorgeous little girls and slightly less gorgeous deer on the way.

Supercute little girls in yukata

Christine feeding beer to the gods.

By the time we were walking past the shrine again, the sun was setting, so it was time for some more photos!

Sunset torii gate

Sunset at the torii gate

Last light in Miyajima

When we got back near the city again, it was time to check into the hostel. So we headed in, got our keys, paid our money, had an epic pillow fight, and then went in search of the promised land - Dan's iPhone told us that there was a vegetarian/Mexican restaurant nearby, and none of us could pass up the chance for enchiladas! We found the place, but they were having a live music night, so we had to wait about 45 mins (or pay the money to go and see the classical guitarist). We decided instead to go and get some beers and sit down by the river to enjoy them. There was some kind of bomb disposal squad (well, firemen who seemed to be CSI-ing the crap out of something burned in a bin) behind us, but we couldn't understand them and they couldn't understand us, so we got to sit in peace. Oh, and dinner was SOOOOOOOOO worth waiting for - a fantastic Mexican feast, the likes of which non of us have seen these past... 2 months. But still - great food and good company to prepare us for tomorrow, when we are going to face the horrors of the Hiroshima Peace Museum.

View over the river back in Hiroshima. This isn't far from the epicentre of the bomb site, and would have been completely destroyed in the bombing 65 years ago. This river was filled with floating bodies, according to descriptions from survivors.

Food Highlight of the Day: Mexican food. Seriously.

Day 55 in Japan - Jump Around

Today was a wonderful day! For starters, it was a Friday. Secondly, it was sunny but not too hot. And thirdly (and most importantly) it was a Friday! I started teaching lessons about food today but neglected to have breakfast. That was a mistake. By lunchtime, my stomach was growling, and I was describing bruschetta in way too much detail to my bewildered first year students. Some of the nice teachers donated me rice crackers and other snacks, but I tore into my lunch bento when it finally came. After lunch, the kids got to practise their rope skipping, and I took about a million photos and videos.

Third years wear blue shorts

Second years wear red shorts

First years wear green shorts

So let me explain this. Next week we have our school Sports Day. This is like an athletics carnival in an Australia - we would normally be broken up into houses and could earn points for our house by competing in events. Here they are broken up into their homerooms (they are broken up by years - for example in my school there are nine first year home rooms), and as well as the individual events, there are a few events where they compete in groups. One of the biggest events is the jump rope, where the kids have 3 minutes to jump a huge rope as a whole class as many times as possible. They get one point for each jump, and it's really competitive. The various classes have been coming in early a few days each week for the last week or two, and today was the day for the whole school to practise, one year at a time. Most of the kids were so serious about it - particularly the third years.

Above is a video of my first year special science class jumping the rope. They managed over 20 jumps on their best attempts, after they had videoed their first practises and analysed where they were going wrong. I love these kids! I have my fingers crossed for them to get the most jumps.

After school, Sam and I went to McDonalds. Twice. For the Happy Meal toys. DON'T JUDGE ME. This week at McDonalds, there are Taiko drum game mascots on offer, and we wanted all four, so we had two Happy Meals each for dinner (at different McDonalds' so we wouldn't look like pigs). We love playing the Taiko drumming game when we are at arcades, and we really wanted the toys. So I ate 2 cheeseburgers, 2 fries and 2 cokes. It was awesome and horrible. And now I have a Mozart Taiko drum, Mecha Taiko drum, Ribbon Taiko drum and a Panda Taiko drum.

These are the Taiko drum mascots I now own (Katsu and Don).

We decided to complete our corporate whorishness by actually going to play the game at the arcade as well - we played a song from Soul Calibur, the Mario theme song, and a McDonalds song. The new electronics store near our house also opened today, so we went to check it out. Apparently, so did the rest of Akashi - the place was totally packed! I think there was someone from the Hanshin Tigers (the Osaka baseball team), and everyone was in a huge line to sign up for the point cards (WHY WOULD YOU BOTHER STANDING IN A LINE FOR AN HOUR TO GET A CARD THAT MIGHT GIVE YOU A 1% DISCOUNT IF YOU SPEND LIKE $1000? AAARGH - IT'S A TERRIBLE SYSTEM, PEOPLE. REBEL!). Anyway, it was a crowded half hour wandering around and looking at the Japanese selection of games - my very rough estimate was 5% XBox, 15% PSP, 10% PS2 20% PS3, 25% Wii and 25% DS. But Pokemon Black and White come out tomorrow, which will add about another 5% to the DS stands. Bought peach flavoured cocktails and Doritos on the way home, then packed for the weekend adventure...

Taiko no Tatsujin arcade game

Grand opening of Joshin store

Food Highlight of the Day: Mixed fruit juice flavoured Kit Kats. Weird, but tasty.

Day 54 in Japan - A dash of jinja

Today I was a little sad - it was a Shimizu Day, and a bit grey and rainy. I got a bit of time on the train this morning and got to send a few messages home and got a bit sentimental. Awwww. And it is shitty class day (damn you shitty class). So, after work I decided that I wanted to do something to cheer myself up. Sam got onboard the "do something fun" boat, and so after work, he walked both our bikes to the station to meet me (very awkwardly), and we went for a bike ride to our recycle shop. 

Famicom anyone? This is the Japanese
 version of the NES (unfortunately not for sale yet).

After having a good look at other peoples junk (sometimes literally), we went for a sunset ride in West Okubo. We found new temples and shinto shrines (which are called jinjas in Japanese), and even climbed up a hill to watch the sun set over our local town. As there aren't really any hills around, this was actually kind of an achievement. 

Sunset over rice fields.

The roof of our local Buddhist temple - Shokakuji Temple.

Kanagasaki Jinja - our local Shinto Shrine

Lantern outside jinja

Ginger (if you think my hair is orange) and jinja

The sunset over Okubo

After the sun had set, we pointed our bikes home, but got distracted by a TORI NIKU PLACE ALMOST NEXT TO OUR HOUSE! Tori = chicken, and niku = meat, so a tori niku = deliciousness. The whole menu was in kanji (with photos), and all the staff spoke only Japanese, which would have intimidated Sam and I a few weeks ago, but now we manage to muddle our way through. I got a crumbed and deep fried chicken cutlet with rice and a gravy-type sauce. Sam got a rice bowl thing that cooked by itself. The chefs were awesome guys, and we will definitely go back here even though it was a little pricey. 

Chefs at Tori-Doru (our new local chicken shop - a little different to Chicko's)

Food Highlight of the Day: Chocolate bar filled with peanuts. Wait, I'm not finished yet. Filled with peanuts THAT ARE COATED IN CRUNCHY BISCUIT. You know, like those peanuts that are almost twice as big as a peanut and normally have some salty coating on them? Yeah, now put them into a chocolate bar. Instant mood lift!

Day 53 in Japan - A nice chunk of meat

Finally, after 2 weeks of teaching, I have done my last self-intros today! I had to do 28 repeats of the same lesson, but I am now free of explaining that my Mum is a high school teacher, my Dad is an engineer, and my brother is very tall. I realised that as the periods are 50 minutes long, so 24 X 50 = 1200 minutes, or 20 hours of talking about myself. Almost a full day of doing nothing but talking about me. Wow. So no different to normal, really :P I had three good lessons, and got some good planning for my science lessons done. And I caught a lizard in my classroom and released it outside. My kids think I'm Steve Irwin now - to be fair it was a proud and might beast that I tamed.

Oh yeah, you can call me St. George, Dragonslayer.

After school, we recorded the speeches for the speech contest for the Akashikita E.S.S. club kids. There were two girls who gave lovely speeches - one speaking about how her grandfather resurrecting the Bonodori festival in her local area had inspired her to take action in her plans for the future, and the other talking about how the pervious ALT at the school had taught the students the Hula and how they slowly came to realise that the hula was her way of saying thanks and being thanked in return. That didn't make much sense (I AM THE GREATEST ENGLISH TEACHER IN THE WORLD, SHUT UP), but it actually made me cry a little bit when she read it. This was the same girl that was crying last week because she didn't think she was good enough to be in the contest, and her speech made me cry! I am very proud of the both of them. I also got to experience the domain of the Broadcast Club (like the Sound Crew) at school - an odd little recording studio with cables all around the walls that smells an awful lot like feet. If only they had lighting to play with as well I would have felt completely at home. It's rather odd to see a bunch of cute and enthusiastic little Japanese schoolgirls fiddling with sound desks rather than jaded and cynical old dudes who nip out between musical numbers for a smoke.

This is skipping, Japanese-style. The whole class lines up to compete
 against other classes to see who can skip the longest or something.
Those are the boys jumping, and the girls have just finished.

Dinner tonight was fantastic - I have been missing meat, and tonight we had a nice lean piece of pork. Marinated in garlic, tonkatsu sauce, salt, pepper, sesame oil, and a bit of whatever else we had lying around. It was absolutely great to have a bit of meat that wasn't minced, sliced to less than 2 mm or coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried. Ummm, I didn't take a photo, because I ate it too fast. Sorry. I'll cook it again.

Food Highlight of the Day: Pork fillets with epplant and carrots with soy, lime and molasses. But that's not the highlight. The highlight was the caramel cheesecake tart for dessert. This glorious cream-covered cheesecake treat had the most-high honour of being the most delicious cake that I have eaten since I came to Japan. For the brief period between me tasting it and finishing eating it.