Land of the Missing Sun

On the Monday morning we were due to catch our train and manoeuvred our way through the metro carrying our bags in plenty of time to wait at the platform. This was no ordinary train though as we were booked on the Shinkansen (the bullet train) one of the fastest trains in the world. The trains had a distinctive aerodynamic nose and can reach speeds up to 300 miles per hour. Once we got settled the train left on time (unlike back home), we were sitting on the right hand side which would give us excellent views of Mount Fuji but unfortunately due to the cloud and mist we didn't see any of it. One of the other strange things was that every time a guard left the carriage they would stop at the door and complete a low bow to all the passengers. We had to change trains which was no problem at all before arriving in Kyoto exactly on time at 2 pm.

We hadn't booked accommodation as our Japanese was pretty poor so we headed into the tourist information who booked us into a ryokan (a traditional Japanese style inn) for several nights. Arrived at Ryokan Ihora (near the Gion district) into our room and what seemed like a different world. It felt like we were transported into a 60's James Bond movie and half expected a band of female assassins to spring through the sliding screens. We took off our shoes and donned the lovely slippers left out for us. The coffee table was knee height (mine not Chris's) with chairs on the straw matted floor and we were left a couple of kimonos to wear. There was no bed insight though as expected there were mats in the cupboard for us to lay out later……so we did - every last one of them (although I am sure we were only supposed to sleep on one of them.)


We then spent several hours wandering around the Gion district which was full of huge department stores and several lanes of undercover shops/market stalls before catching something to eat and finding an internet cafe. Woke up the following day to overcast skies so we walked bacl into the centre to the Tourist Information place to do a couple of admin things. It was raining cats and dogs when we came out so we took the metro back to hotel rather than walking over an hour in the rain and ate our lunch there where Chris ate his first Japanese pot noodle (he says it was much better than those back home). At night we wandered along the shops and we stumbled upon a temple in the middle of this district. It was lit up by loads of lanterns and there seemed to be some service going on as we could hear the chanting coming from inside. We ate our dinner in that good old Yoshinoya after being on the internet.


On Wednesday the weather was not fairing any better so we headed to the Hein Shrine which had a huge red gate entrance. We soon realised that Kyoto was the school trip capital of Japan as we passed about 3 classes of young school kids which was the theme for the rest of our days in Kyoto. Several of the kids (usually the boys) would shout 'Hello’and when we said it back they would giggle behind their hands. We then went to Shoren In temple which had huge camphor trees before heading to the Chion-In Temple. This had a huge main hall and there was some sort of service/ceremony being carried out as lots of older ladies sat singing and hitting bells and the hall was closed off to us mere mortals. We also sat in one of the temples for a while listening to the chanting of several Buddhist monks and the noise seemed to reverberate through the whole of the room. When we came out the heavens opened again so we headed back and chilled out. We bought our second souvenir which was two fabric wall hangings which is not too bad considering we've been away for 7 months.

Thursday turned out to be much better and we woke up to a glorious blue sky so we quickly changed our plans and rather than heading for Osaka we went back to the temples we'd been in the day before. The sky was a much better backdrop for the metallic red in the Hein Shrine. We then went into the Muruyama Park which was huge and wandered past the numerous school groups, the pond, a graveyard, several other temples and a massive white stone Buddha. This is where we saw loads of women wearing the traditional Japanese Kimonos before stumbling on an area where they have created loads of tiny streets with traditional Japanese houses which now just sell tat to tourists.


We walked back to the centre of Kyoto and into the magnificent Kyoto station building which is a huge structure of steel and glass with great views over the city and a scary sky walk for vertigo sufferers like myself. There is also a bamboo garden on the roof of the department stores for workers/shoppers to chill out with great views of Kyoto Tower and surrounding areas. That night we saw a guy with a belt on holding at least 20 mobile phones (wonder what would have happened if they all went off at once). The internet café here was similar to the one in Tokyo with free drinks but the best of all was that they had a free slush puppy machine.

On Friday we took our second trip on the bullet train and headed further west to Hiroshima. Once again Japan rails efficiency was never in doubt, as well as being very fast the Shinkansen are also very safe and in 30 years of operation they have never had any fatalities. We had already booked our accommodation so it was a short walk to the Flex hotel in which we had a small but lovely room with an added bonus of free internet connection. We dumped our things and went for a wander well Chris had spotted two CD shops in all of the five minutes that took us to walk from the station to the hotel so this was our first stop. We then managed to visit 4 out of the 5 shops that this chain had in Hiroshima and Chris bought a few things to keep him occupied.


At night we tried to find a certain area for dinner but we wandered around a place that was completely dead so we managed to find somewhere in a small place in a more happening area. The chef/owner came out from behind the counter and stood outside whilst we pointed to the plastic version of what we wanted in the shop window. Not sure if we have mentioned this but there's an area in Tokyo where you can go and buy plastic plate versions of all types of dishes which are supposed to look like the real thing, some are close but others are nowhere near the mark. So we sat at the counter and watched the dinner being made up and then we quickly devoured the delicious chicken tempura and pork and rice.

We then headed to a place called Mac's Bar which had thousands of CD's, I even have to say I think it may have put Chris' CD collection to shame!! We sat and had a few beers and got chatting to Alan from Ireland who was travelling alone throughout Asia before heading to Australia. The music was really good ranging from Bob Dylan to Belle & Sebastian with some choice Velvet Underground tracks and a smattering of Radiohead and Beck. Everywhere we’ve been on this trip we’ve heard Franz Ferdinand and we've even been known to have a dance to ‘Take Me Out’ - as we did on this occasion quite late into the night. Several beers later and Alan thought he'd better head home….well we left not long after and it was about 4ish when we landed back at the hotel.


Woke up the following morning to more grey/whitish sky, at least it wasn't raining. We walked along to the Peace Park and saw the A-Bomb Dome which is the symbol of the destruction of Hiroshima. The bomb exploded almost directly above it and it's structure has remained intact (although it's now propped up) and remains as a permanent reminder of what happened.


We walked through the Peace Park which holds many different memorials: the centotaph (containing names of all known victims which is updated on an annual basis), the Flame of Peace (will only be extinguished when the last nuclear weapon has been destroyed), the Children's Peace Memorial (inspired by Sadakoa, a 10 year old girl with leukaemia who decided to fold 1000 paper cranes a symbol of longevity and happiness who died before she could reach her target) this memorial now contains paper cranes from all over the world and lastly the Korean A Bomb Memorial, a large number of Koreans worked as slave labour in the factories and prisoner of war camps. It has taken several decades for the Japanese to recognise the fact that more than 1 in 10 people who lost their lives at Hiroshima were Korean.

We then went into the Peace Memorial Museum which tells the grim story of what happened on 06 August 1945. The museum had many displays, which thankfully were also in English, that explained the science behind the creation of the bomb, the decision why to bomb Japan and not Germany and the destruction and aftermath of the world's first atomic bomb used in warfare. It describes the allied decision not to carry out air raids on Hiroshima beforehand so that they could understand the full power of their new weapon. For days leading up to the bombing and afterwards the USA took many aerial photographs of the city to enable them to assess the devastation. Many thousands of people lost their lives almost immediately and thousands of others suffered for years afterwards due to the effects of radiation including rescue workers. There were many tragic stories in particular those of the school children whose parents only had clothing or school bags left as reminders. This museum definitely is a thought provoking place and drives home the realities of atomic warfare. The museum doesn't hold back in it's condemnation of the USA using the atomic bomb, but it also recognises that the Japanese forces also carried out many atrocities throughout Asia and the South Pacific.

We had a fairly relaxing night (following our late one the night before) and watched the Lithuiania vs. Japan football game on tv with Celtic's Shunuske Nakamura scoring and the rest of the night chatting to folk on the internet. The following day we headed back to Tokyo on the ever punctual Bullet Train. These trains hold far more people probably in one carriage than we hold in three back home and are extremely clean. We ate some sushi on the train which was really nice and promptly arrived in Tokyo. Our hotel room was even smaller than the last one although we did manage to get free internet access this time. We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant and had dim sum which was really good along with a main course.


Our last few days in Tokyo were slightly hampered by the weather and a bank holiday which we knew nothing about. On the Monday we went to Shibuya and wandered the shops for a while. To get out of the rain for a while we headed into one of the many amusement arcades and had a shot on a drum game, where you had to beat a drum and cymbals as they appeared on screen, Chris won by two points but he did have a warm up game before hand (well that’s my excuse anyway). We had lunch in a wee counter place with two huge bowls of noodles - they were lovely. Headed back towards the station and noticed the massive Shunuske Nakamura billboard above the main department store advertising adidas.


The following day we headed to a photography exhibition in Ebisu which was closed on Mondays (unless it was a bank holiday) and guess what the Monday was a bank holiday so we missed the exhibition. We had also planned to go to the Sapporo beer museum and do their tour but this was also closed for the same reason. So we headed off on the subway to Tokyo Bay across the Rainbow bridge. We wandered through the Sony shop which had Eye Toy games…..well again Chris proved he was the champion - I could hardly get the game started whilst he was chopping cucumber like I have never seen before and squishing tomatoes all over the place. We had look in a Coca Cola shop selling hundreds of different merchandise with the world famous logo. Afterwards we ate a great lunch in a Sake Brewery called Hanashibe. We had decided that we couldn't leave Japan without experimenting with their local drink so we bought a bottle of Sake from their shop for later.


We then passed the big wheel and no matter how much Chris tried to persuade me I wasn't going on it and certainly not in their see through cabs. We stumbled upon the Toyota Exhibition which isn’t all just the latest models of cars, we went inside a huge stimulator which took you around the Fuji Formula One course where you could feel every bump and gear change. We also had a roam through their small car museum before another lengthy walk through a bizarre designer shopping centre called Venus Fort which had a fake moving sky which changed colours. We toasted our last night in Tokyo back at the hotel with the Sake, pot noodles and sushi. The sake didn't last too long as we only had two small glasses each but since it was fairly potent at about 50% proof it was probably just as well.


We had an early rise on our last day for our travel to the airport and took the long train as opposed to the express train. We also met this really strange American who took the liberty of depositing himself opposite us on the train in a fairly empty carriage and decided to shout at us all the way to our stop. His stories ranged all mainly around him and his famous brother in law (whom he didn't name but apparently is a Thespian). We finally arrived at the airport in time for our flight to Hong Kong and then onwards to Beijing.