david and the month of may

The Peace BellThe A-Bomb Dome

Memorial Cenotaph

The Children's Peace Monument

the biggest spoon

i think they are mussels

Miyajima

a big red pagoda in miyajima

a temple in miyajima

shrines in miyajima

the top of a pagoda in Miyajima

the gates

Miyajima

the big red gates in Miyajima

deer in Miyajima

Himeji Castle

a chocolate volcano that never errupted

a tremendous line and unbrellas galore

Himeji Castle

if for no other reason i am happy to have spent a year in japan because it meant that david could come visit me

april 27th was the first day of my vacation.

it felt like the first time i got to see dave cause of work. i was starting to get jealous of steph. we went to the Himeji Sweets Festival with Chika and her parents. the festival was very busy and not very interesting.... we didnt ever get to eat any sweets, there were just a bunch of sculptures made out of sugar which i mean is cool and all but... but Chika and her parents were very nice. we had a lunch that david did not really like at all (he told me he missed canadian food) i personally love japanese food mostly. but i had never seen himeji before so that was good and we got to see himeji castle which is a world heritage sight (the whole time we were there i was wondering why this castle in particular was a world heritage sight cause there are so many in japan and no one could tell me but then at the end we found an english pamphlet and it said its just a world heritage sight because japan decided it is the one that best represents all the castles in japan and its the best preserved). himeji castle was cool. i think david liked it. the steps were really slippery and narrow. i liked the old wood floors. there was a place where samurai commit suicide because thats what you're supposed to do under samurai law when you make a mistake because its such a dishonor and people are so ashamed. i think grandma and aunty verna might have liked it. we bought them some sweets but apparently you guys didnt like them too much. in one of the many lines i sang sikina marinky dinky doo (from Sharon Louis and Bran) to a little girl... it was a highlight.

on april 28th we went to Hiroshima and Miyajima

it was davids first shinkansen ride. i think he was pretty impressed. we got up much too late than what befits a traveller. and so the day ensued. we got to Hiroshima rather late in the day, what time i could not tell you. first we set out for Miyajima (the island a ferry ride away). we took the subway and got the ferry. Miyajima is ok. well its an island and there is a temple and a pagoda and lots of trees and forest and sand and the big thing about it is that there is this big red gate that stands in the water. the gate is supposed to be really special because it stands on its own but i dont really know what that means. there are deer there too like in nara. they are kind of sad looking and very mangy and scruffy. we saw a little kid that was lost but some japanese people stopped and helped them look for their parents... i hope they found them. we walked through an arcade and there were lots of windows with mussells (i think) in them and people were frying them. we stopped and bought some honey for dad and sonia (although i dont think sonia ever got the honey and im assuming mom has eaten it by now) made with lotus flowers and uzu (a small japanese citrus). we walked through some back streets that were pretty interesting and sat down for a drink. david forgot the camera on the steps but luckily some other travellers found it and gave it back to us, it was really nice. we took the ferry back to Hiroshima and took a long bus ride to the A-Bomb dome and the Peace Memorial Park. The atomic bomb was dropped 150 meters from the building and it was the closest building to the epitcentre to withstand the explosion (at least in its skeletal state) and is preserved in the same state as directly after the bombing. In the park there is a statue called the Children's Peace Monument with a golden paper crane hanging from it and there are glass cases of paper cranes that children all over the world have folded and sent in memory of a little girl who died from exposure to raditation as a result of the nuclear bombing who believed that if she folded a thousand paper cranes she would be cured but she died before she could fold them all. There are also several other monuments: the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound where 70 000 unidentified victim's ashes are buried, the Cenotaph for Korean Victims, the Memorial Cenotaph that has inscribed on it all the names of all the victims of the bombing, the Peace Flame, the Peace Bell, and the Peace Gates (but i didnt see the peace gates). There are also two museums in the park: Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. We went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum first but since we got there so late we didnt get to see all of it properly and they started closing before we were done and then as we were leaving we realized there was a second museum that was also closing so we only got to walk through it as we were leaving. It was sad that we didnt get to see the museums but it was our own fault. The museum that we did see had a lot of information about the war and what lead to the bombing and a model of Hiroshima before and after the bombing and watches that stopped at the exact time the bomb dropped. From the little i saw of the other museum it had artifacts that belonged to the victims of the bombing like scorched clothing and kids school things. There were some stone steps that had someone's shadow burned into them. I want to go back and see the rest of the museum... maybe I will go for the ceremony on August 6th if i can. after that we grabbed the shinkansen and got home.