Miyajima and Hiroshima

23/9 Miyajima. Miyajima is listed 3rd in the top 3 places to go in Japan, mainly because of the large Red/Orangey Tori that sits in the water most of the time. Miyajima is also known for the deer that reside there. Helen and I had a bit of an incident with one. I told Helen to pretend she had food so I could get a picture with her and the deer. The deer came up and instead of walking away when it discovered she had no food it bit her brochure and they had a fight over it. As a result her brochure had a bite mark taken out of it. Then we saw the notice on the brochure "Beware, the deer eat paper" following the sentence was the bite! Another strange thing that Miyajima has is a massive paddle! We were very confused by this.. it was only days later I found out this is the paddle they use for cooking rice. I still don't know why this area would house the BIG PADDLE rather than anywhere else in Japan. I just asked again (12/10) and well here are the reasons 1. lots of trees, 2. souvenir (you write nice messages on it and give it to people) 3. religion of the paddle. All of this sounds extremely strange to me and even Yuki and Ayu are laughing at the reasons. There excuse is it a little a hard to explain (Chotto muzukashi!). Helen and I walked up the mountain, I think we were the only ones. Please look at the picture with the creek in it. Does that looked natural to you? The story goes, there was alot of problems with landslides and errosion so the council hired someone to irradicate the problem but to still keep it looking natural. Once it was finished a professor from Tokyo University came and was astounded at how natural it looked! I'm sorry but since when is cement natural and has anyone else ever seen rock water falls so STRAIGHT?!?! We saw a few wild deers but there was no sign of the many monkeys that are supposed to live there. There was a cable car but we were wanting to save money and also have a bit of a nice walk. I can't really say it was a nice walk... more like a very difficult one and so by the top we were dripping with sweat, not very glamorous. The view was nice-ish view but it was a bit hard to see due to all the haize. In the second picture of the view can you just make out the red tori which is where we started. We walked back down again but had to take the same route down as the typhoon a few weeks before resulted in multiple landslides. You can see at one place where the track had been taken away. The tori looks quite beautiful at night and as you can imagine I took way too many photos as the light faded.











































24/9 Hiroshima. I have probably mentioned before but my favourite thing to see in Japan are the gardens. This one was quite lovely but I think we got spoilt my the fabulous ones we saw in Okayama the previous week. As you can see there were some still some very lovely scenes a the gardens. In the pond there were the biggest number of turtles I have ever seen. They are very cute struggling to get up on the rock. swimming over each other, pushing each other out of the way. It's just like watching small children in a pool, only in slow motion.



























Hiroshima Castle. This castle was quite small compared to others I have seen but still very nice. Unfortunately I was unable to get a picture of the roof ornament like I usually do as we weren't allowed to tke picture inside. The castle grounds were actually quite large but there are only a handful of building that were rebuilt after the A-bomb destroyed it all. We got to play dress ups in the castle!!! Here is me trying to be a serious samarai. And no, I couldn't resist taking a picture of this horse. It's the first statue of a horse I have seen in Japan.




Hiroshima vs Osaka. After the castle Helen and I met up with two of her friends that live in her town and went to the baseball. The Osaka Tigers are one of the top teams in the league and Osaka fans took up 3/4 of the stadium even though it was Hiroshima's home ground. As you can see from the picture my zoom is pretty good isn't it!! Sorry I have to brag considering how much I paid for it. I have decided that I could easily become a fan of baseball although it's hard to know what is more entertaining the crowd or the game. All the cheers are organised and the guy there in the red shirt... he's the conductor. He controls the crowd and tells them what to sing next. There are trumpets that belt out the tune and unfornately for us they were right behind us. The tunes were very catchy and we joined in a times. Joining in was sometimes very easy as they were saying "Home run! Home run!" The "strange" shaped ballons were all blown up by one of the teams supporters and let go. The all screem around and some go onto the field. There are people waiting on the field to pick them up. Then a short time later the opposing team does the same thing. It is so organised, unlike Australian sport supporters.
























The A-bomb Dome. Most of you would have seen this image before. It is quite powerful and also amazing how this building still stood, when many others didn't in the blast.
For dinner thant night we went and had the famous Hiroshima okonomiyaki. It's like a massive pancake/omlette thing made with noodles. Hard to explain but its cooked in front of you and is quite delicious. One problem is you eat in front of the chef and it was WAY too much food for me but had to eat in anyway so not to insult the chef. How I got it in I don't know, I was stuffed!
25/9 Hiroshima Peace Park. There's not much I can really out in words about this place as it unbelievably powerful. The first photo is of a stone box that contains all the names of the people who dies in the A-bomb blast or as a result of the blast. The second picture is a memorial to the children's memorial. The statue is of a girl Sadako Sasaki who was 2 when the bomb was dropped she died of leukemia at age 12. She had been told of a Japanese legend that if you fold 1000 paper cranes you will be cured. She made over 1000 before she died. The displays around the statue contain many cranes. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum leaves you with feelings that can't be put into words. All I can say is this must not ever happen again.

Okayama, Himeji & Hattoji

Hi All,
I did say my entries were going to shorter but there are so many photos and places I want to show you all. This long weekend Helen and I took a trip to Okayama, Himeji and Hattoji.
17/9 Okayama. We took the shinkansen (bullet train) to Okayama and visited Okayama Korakuen garden and Okayama Castle. The garden was huge and very beautiful as you can see from the pictures. Stragely enough the garden contained a small rice paddy. The rice is almost ready to be harvested. Also in the garden were the rarely seen Japanese Cranes (Tanchou Suru). I am guessing they would be an endangered species and wouldn't have a large wild population but don't quote me. I haven't seen any others and neither has a guy who has lived here for 8 years. From the gardens you can see Okayama Castle.

































Okayama Castle is pretty and has very beautiful golden roof ornament. The inside of the castle has now been modified into a museum and therefore you could not see the inside structure of the castle which is slightly disappointing. The indoor picture is of the emporer's taxi. People would carry him from place to place in this wooden box you can see. The girl in the picture was very shy but very cute.
After sightseeing Okayama we made our way to our accomodation at Hattoji. A 45 minute train ride and a 20minute taxi ride we made it in the dark. There were 2 New Zealander's, 2 German's, 1 American and 1 Japanese person already at the Villa. Our intentions were to stay at Hattoji for the whole next day but talking to the foreigners at the Villa you could see everything in 1 hour! So, intead we decided to go to Himeji Castle in the morning and see Hattoji in the afternoon.
18/9 Himeji Castle. This castle is world heritage listed and it is easy to see why. It is beautiful and amazingly huge. All original (or restored) i.e. it wasn't detroyed in WWII and have to be rebuilt like many other castles. The inside structure was amazing to see but I guess that's the engineer side of me coming out. There were so many amazing things in this castle. Some examples include; entire levels of gun and long spear racks, peep holes to defend the castle, secret rooms within the castle for hiding if the enemy entered the castle. There were many tactics used as castle defense like sloping floors, low ceiling beams, trip beams along the floor. The last photo is an example of pure talent... riding one bike and steering another... he did it with such ease too!















18/9 Hattoji. Hattoji is a tiny town in the mountain. This is RURAL. The information of Hattoji being small was correct. There was a few shrines, a temple and a folk museum (one room!). There is also Mt. Hattoji (538m) to climb if you wish. We were told by the other foreigners that it was difficult and nonw have them made it to the top. I agree that it was not an easy climb, the signs are not that helpful (as you can see), there are less than appealing creatures blocking your path but the view is spectacular. It was well worth it. The house we stayed in is over 120 years old and has a thatched roof. Inside were all tatami matts and sliding door. We slept on futons on the floor which we pack up every day. Alongside being a great experience staying in very traditional Japanese accomodation is also CHEAP! The Villa is open to international guests and their guests and is only 2500 yen per night which roughly translates to $30 per night.
























19/9 Shinkansen. This was our not so shabby ride home. It does a mere 300km/hr.