Ludwig's Odyssey: Japan - Hiroshima, Nagasaki and farewell from Osaka

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two cities synonymous with WWII.

Some might say that we’re trying to depress ourselves by visiting these Atomic Bomb sites. It wasn’t just about that, there’s more to these cities, more than being famous for being destroyed in seconds. We shouldn’t forget that 70 years ago this year why and how these bombings happened, nor should we forget that they were in the context of war however terrible they might seem now, which they do to us rest assured.

Hiroshima’s A-Dome as it has since been called is an impressive ruin. Even if we didn’t know how it had been ruined, it would still have an awe about it as old beautiful decaying buildings can sometimes have. In a voyeuristic way, it’s very photogenic but it’s also a place to reflect on the horrors of war. The surrounding Peace Park is very good and well made. We were blessed with a beautiful hot sunny day and it was a nice place to stroll around. With some interesting architecture and memorials all around including the Flame of Peace that will burn until the last of the nuclear weapons on Earth have been destroyed (decommissioned safely of course!). There are over 15,000 weapons in the world at the moment, http://ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report WTF!!!

The museum is sombre as you would expect but gives good information not just on the details of the impact of the bomb dropped by the Enola Gay Bomber and the immediate effects but also on the survivors’ ordeal immediately after the impact but also in the following months and years dealing with radiation poisoning as well as having to rebuild their lives.

There was a sad story of a little girl, Sadako who developed leukaemia when she was just 11 in 1955. Given only so much time to live, she decided to make 1000 paper cranes. The crane in Japan is revered for long life and there is an old saying that if you make 1000 paper cranes you would be granted one wish. So believing that by making these cranes she could have her one wish to prolong her life, she steadfastly folded these cranes but it wasn’t meant to be, she passed on that year and the paper cranes she had folded were distributed at her funeral. Did she succeed in making 1000 cranes you may ask? Well there is conflicting information, one story says she didn’t, the museum in Hiroshima says she did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadako_Sasaki

It’s not all doom and gloom these days in Hiroshima, It’s a big clean bustling modern town with a great tram network to get you up and down the city. We got on the sightseeing bus (because it was free with our JR passes really) to see some of the parts a bit far out of the city centre but of course It was lovely to walk around the centre and we got some good views of the rebuilt castle and saw a mural painted by inmates of the local detention centre (we think), we also enjoyed a wonderful Okonomiyaki (Japan’s take on the pizza I suppose) for dinner.

We only spent the one day here and suppose one day is enough really, there’s some other museums if you wanted to stay a little longer but we decided to make our way south and to Japan’s third largest island, Kyushu.

A three hour or so journey took us to Nagasaki, the not so well visited or well remembered A-Bomb site as I guess it was the second one. It’s a sad reflection of what Nagasaki is known for now.

Before the bomb hit, for 200 years plus, the little Dutch enclave in Dejima was the only trading post with the outside world that the Tokugawa Shogunate (Edo Period) allowed up until 1854.

Compared to Hiroshima, we hardly spotted any western tourists (although the travel guides would lead you to believe the contrary) and walking around the peace park there it was more school groups than any-one else so it made for a different atmosphere which is just as well as we didn’t want a repeat of what we had in Hiroshima after all.

The monuments and memorials are quite different to those of Hiroshima including a huge ten metre Peace Statue and with mountains all around it’s a beautiful spot to reflect.

Nagasaki wasn’t meant to be hit by Bock’s Car. The Bomber’s initial target was Kokura but visibility was so poor they moved down the coast and dropped the bomb on Nagasaki instead which was the second choice. In a way, Nagasaki was luckier than Hiroshima as the bomb dropped a few kilometres north of the centre of the city but the impact was devastating none-the-less. We didn’t visit the Peace Museum here as it would shave been very similar to what we had seen the previous day but the Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims had an impressive minimalist memorial that could be seen above and below ground.

As with Hiroshima, a good tram system takes you around the city but somehow it’s not quite as pleasant to walk around as Hirsohsima was.

Another reason we came to Nagasaki and maybe the main reason in truth, was to see and hopefully visit Gukanjima also known as Battle Ship Island as it does look like one from a certain angle.

This little island about 15km out used to be a coal mining town and for some time was the most densely populated place in the world with some 5000 plus people living in an area the size of around 3 football pitches. It was in use from the early 1900s when Mitsubishi set up the coal mine there up until 1974 when the island was abandoned and the buildings there left to rot which is the main draw as it gives you a peek in to what a post-apocalyptic scene would really look like. The Island’s peak in production was during WWII. The poor souls whom had to work there had to endure temperatures of 35c with 95% humidity. Having experienced this sort of climate for about a year now, I can’t imagine you’d want to work in them, let alone underground!

A lot of you would have seen this Island already on the silver screen no doubt. It was in Skyfall, no not the Adele music video, the James Bond film!

It was a good tour and being a calm day out at sea we were hopeful that we would make land fall. This is not guaranteed as it’s tricky to land here and sadly so it proved for us, there was no way the boat could moor up as waves were crashing against us making it impossible to dock. It was a shame although had we landed we couldn’t have walked around the island freely anyway and there were only certain places you could see so in actual fact, circumnavigating the island in the boat was probably better and gave us a great view.

To make up for not landing, the tour company takes you to a digital museum instead once back in Nagasaki. A well made and futuristic type of museum with huge screens which shows you what it would have looked like in it’s heyday, a few photos of what we could have seen had we landed and also lots of old black and white photos depicting the people on the islands daily life. Quite similar to most coal towns really, families formed close bonds with their neighbours and ate and drank together, although as it’s Japan, they also bathed together.

We came out of the museum which is just by the main port and were wowed by a huge cruise-liner. Monster of a ship it was. Wend was quite amazed as she had never seen one close up before. After some lunch, we walked around the older part of town which was spared from destruction by the A-bomb. A Colonial area with western houses that you could walk into freely and nearby a nice port area with a park. We enjoyed watching the ships roll in (think there’s a song about that ;-) in the afternoon and we also walked around the wharf area at night to see the massive cruise ship setting off. Had more lights than Blackpool Tower! it ended our little trip to Nagasaki nicely.

Well our time in Japan nearly over, we made our way to Osaka which of course was very fast and comfortable on the Shinkhansen to spend our last two nights before heading back to KL.

Osaka didn’t really have anything new for us as we’d seen the best of what it already offered in other places but we did enjoy strolling at night in the neon lights of Dotombori district and we also enjoyed the views atop of the Umeda Sky Building even though it was a rainy day. This building being the first of its kind in the world when it opened in 1993 to have a walking deck high up in the air that joined two skyscrapers.

We stayed in a little flat in a non-touristy district next to a convenient train station. A typical city dwelling that Japanese would live in which included a little room with a futon to sleep on, then rolled away in the morning so that the low table could be used to drink green tea and have meals plus a little bathroom and kitchenette. Much cheaper than business hotel prices in Osaka.

Befitting our last night in Japan, it was a stormy night just like our first was in Tokyo. Can’t complain though, the weather had been fabulous whilst we were here.

There’s no denying it, we were sad to leave Japan. After having high expectations, we were not disappointed at all with this amazing country. Initially not in our plans at the outset of our trip, it could very well be our favourite at the end. Can’t wait to come back some day.

Sayonara!

Our lasting memories of Japan.

The cliches/stereotypes that you think of are true and did make a real impression on us such as:

Courtesy, politeness including the bowing (love that), cleanliness, efficiency, great train travel, neon lights and earthquakes!

Aside from these:

Bijou business hotels, just about big enough for two.

Space-age toilets with a variety of bottom washing options and seat warmer.

Pleasant musical jingles in most places where they want to get your attention, particularly at zebra crossings and train stations even the dustman’s got one!

Bird sounds in the stations of Tokyo and Osaka.

Jazz, you can hear it in a lot of restaurants, museum shops even in convenience stores like Family Mart and Lawsons.

Salary Man, the ubiquitous office worker, can be spotted on any given train journey usually asleep as he works too much and sleeps to little at night.

Yoshinoya beef bowls, delicious and cheap also a good place to spot the salary man wolfing down some rice.

Huge crows, much bigger than ones in the UK.
Huge Koi in all the lakes around Japanese Gardens and also in the rivers and moats.

Decorated man hole covers that have pictures of things synonymous with the town.

Rubber stamps at all the major attractions, gives kids and adults alike a memory in their scrap book, we got a few too!

Animé, it’s everywhere you look as are drinks vending machines (inc. beer), there's at least one every 50 metres!

Feeling like you’re in a Studio Ghibli set, a lot of the films depict everything as so colourful with the bright green rice paddies and all the sweet little houses and they really are like that.

Hiroshima