Nara and Hiroshima

  Hiroshima, Chugoku, Japan
Thursday, May 1, 2008

Wednesday April 30th

Mike feeding the deer in Nara

Alison: Today we visited Nara. We caught the train in from Kyoto and walked up from the station to Todaji Temple in Nara Park. They have a large amount of deer in the park who are regarded as messengers from the gods, but actually just enjoy bullying tourists for food, as Michael found out!

They were pretty demanding deer!

We walked for ages in the lovely warm sun and finally found the spectacular temple which is apparently the largest wooden temple in the world and holds an incredibly large bronze Buddha.

The Great Buddha

At the back of the temple we saw all these school children trying to force themselves through a narrow passage in one of the pillars holding up the roof, with much hilarity as it gets narrower in the middle. We sent Rachel through and she managed it pretty easily - not surprising considering her figure - but I read later in the guide book that squeezing yourself through is a fast track to enlightenment... I'm not so sure it's worked yet though on Rachel!

Rachel's short-cut to enlightenment

We wandered around the beautiful streets of Nara and eventually ended up in a different kind of restaurant again - yes I know I talk about food a lot in this, but it really is one of the great joys of travelling so you'll just have to put up with it! This one is called Yaki-niku and you grill the meat and veges on hot coals in front of you - lots of fun and very yummy...

Yummy Yakiniku dinner

Mike: We spent hours wandering through the beautiful streets and parks of Nara. I'm loving how much walking we're all doing and amazing myself that I'm now actually choosing to walk rather than take a local bus or taxi which had always been my previous preferred modus operandi. It's a lovely feeling to feel like there's no hurry to get anywhere, and the physical activity is reminding me that it can feel good to use the old body!

Kofukiji Temple

Thursday May 1st
Alison: Today we caught the Shinkansen (Bullet train) to Hiroshima which took 2 hours each way and got back to Kyoto at 8.00 pm ready to start packing before leaving for Takyama tomorrow...

A-Bomb dome

Tom: Hi guys! we have been at the Peace Park and it is so sad. An A bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and there is still a part there (called the Dome) but luckily there's only a tiny bit left of Radiation so it can't harm a single person. The A bomb was dropped in 1945 and thousands and thousands of people were killed. After that  we went to the museum. In the museum we found out that the plane who dropped the bomb didn't explode the plane. The plane was 600 metres high from the bomb so it just enough time to do a sharp turn back to America. We also found out how an A bomb works so this is how. The Americans including Albert Einstein worked out that almost the smallest thing in the world is an atom and if they split the atom there would be a big explosion.

Rachel: At the museum there was a section about a girl called Sadako who died from the radiation of the A bomb in 1955 10 years after it had dropped. The reason she was in the museum other than all these other people who had died was because she had tried to make 1000 paper cranes in the hope of not dying. This is because the Japanese tradition is that if you make 1000 paper cranes your wish will come true. Sadako made six hundred and forty four paper cranes but when she died her friends helped her have 1000 paper cranes by making 356 more so 1000 paper cranes were buried with her. In the museum there was a display of some of her papercranes.

Some of Sadako's cranes

I didn't really get how it all worked so we bought a book on the real story in the museum so I could learn more about it. While we have been away I have read ''Pippi Longstocking'' and ''Sadako and the thousand paper cranes''. ''Pippi Longstocking'' is a funny and adventurous story and  ''Sadako and the thousand paper cranes'' is a very sad story. What we have got to remember is that we have to remember that thousands of other people died other than Sadako. After Sadako had died the paper crane became a symbol of peace.

Children's Peace Memorial

Alison: The peace park was very moving and we all found it quite disturbing, Rachel especially so when she realised that there are still huge amounts of nuclear bombs in the world ready to be dropped if any world leader was so foolish to do so... 

Beautiful Japanese painting in Museum of Art

After looking at that we walked to lunch and then to the Hiroshima Art Museum which had very many beautiful paintings which were very soothing to contemplate. We also visited the Hiroshima castle and then the kids played some video games at a bowling arcade with Michael before we walked back to the train station and caught the Shinkansen back to Kyoto.

Mike:   For me there was very much a shared sense of complete futility and stupidity as the masses moved about the Museum quietly, horrified by the images that made it come to life again in front of our eyes.   Reading the  politics behind it was equally disturbing, for instance reading letters sent between the leaders deciding to make Japan the first target rather than Germany..  which was as much as anything simply so that Germany (already of course in possession of their own bombs) could not advance their own scientific understandings by witnessing and experiencing the effects of the bomb firsthand - unbelievable but true!   The entire peacepark and museum an incredibly moving and (hopefully) effective lesson to us all...