Whoo hoo, its winter break!* Two and a half weeks of
freedom… sort of. The students are on break so I don’t have to school, but I
still have to go to the Board of Education office every day. However, Christmas
Eve was a holiday since it is also the Emperor’s birthday (national holiday in
Japan), and the 29th-3rd are also off for the New Year
holiday. I get a lot of work and studying done at the BOE though so it’s not so
bad. Plus, I’ll be going to Osaka for New Years and spending it with my
grandma, aunt and uncle. I’m really excited! It will be great to relax with
family and also do some big-city shopping. Osaka has it all!
So during this break, I’ll be trying to catch up on blog
posts a bit. First up is my boyfriend, Ben’s, visit to Japan. He came for two
weeks in late November and we had the best time. I was so happy that I got to
show him where I live and introduce him to Japan a little bit (it was his first
time here!). I was a little worried that we would have some kind of mishap,
like him getting sick or injured (for example, a concussion from hitting his
head on so many doorways
(it’s hard being a 6’3” man in Japan!), or my car breaking down on one of our
road trips. But thankfully, everything went off without a hitch! We took two
mini-road trips while he was here- to Hiroshima and to Tottori. We saw a lot of
cool things, ate some good food, and had a lot of laughs.
We drove to Hiroshima on a Thursday night (Friday was a
holiday) and got to our hostel about 9 pm. The drive from Yasugi takes about
4.5 hours by local roads… if you want to take the tolls and get there faster,
it’s big bucks unfortunately. It was both of our first time’s staying in a
hostel so we weren’t sure what to expect. It was really nice though! We stayed
at J-Hoppers Hiroshima, which is a chain of hostels in big cities designed for
foreigners who are travelling around Japan. The staff spoke English which was
really nice. The walls were pretty thin, but we had our own room and futons for
the night, all for only about 4,000 yen.
Ben of course had issues with the door
We went out for dinner pretty late
after arriving and spotted a place called Deep Dish with an American flag out
front. I got pretty excited as real American-style pizza is hard to come by in
Japan. It turns out they didn’t have pizza, but they did have a lot of American
food (buffalo wings even!). We both got hamburgers and they were delicious. The
bar had cool American-themed decorations too.
The next morning, we got up sort of early and walked to the
Peace Park which was very close to our hostel. I had been to the Peace Park
twice before, when I was seven and seventeen. It’s a very sobering place. I
imagine it’s much the same as visiting other locations where horrible acts have
occurred… you just can’t help but think about what happened on the very ground
you are walking on, all those years ago. There were many people (including a
lot of foreigners) walking around the park.
This is a cenotaph containing a list of all of the victims killed by the bomb. The inscription translates to "Let all the souls here rest in peace for we shall not repeat the evil."
The A-bomb Dome
There are several monuments and
memorials dedicated to the victims of the bomb, but my favorite is the Children’s
Memorial. It is dedicated to all of the children who died in the bombing, but
specifically a young girl named Sadako Sasaki whose story has become famous
across Japan and the world. She was only a few years old when the bomb was
dropped, but suffered radiation poisoning which led to leukemia. There’s an
ancient legend in Japan that says that anyone who folds a 1,000 paper cranes
will be granted a wish by a crane.
According to Wikipedia, the crane is a holy and mystical creature in
Japan and is said to live for a thousand years; hence, a thousand paper cranes,
one for each year. Told that she would most likely die, Sadako began a mission
to make a 1,000 origami paper cranes. She completed her goal and continued to
make more cranes, but sadly died of her disease. Today, people from all over
Japan and the world make paper cranes and bring them to display around the
monument. It’s a beautiful sight.
After our walk through the Peace Park, we got some breakfast
at Mister Donuts. As we were walking back to our hostel though, we saw a Subway
sign. Subways are few and far between in Japan and Ben and I are both big fans,
so we pretty much had to get some subs. The combinations they had were
different from back home and really interesting; I got a smoked salmon sub with
mascarpone cheese and a basil pesto dressing. It was delicious! Yes, eating
lunch directly after breakfast was worth it :)
As we were returning to our hostel, we ran into some Jehovah’s
Witnesses. Now I have never been approached by Jehovah’s Witnesses in the
States so it was interesting to have some just turn up at our hostel. They were
very nice Japanese ladies, but we politely turned them down (I took a
pamphlet because I felt bad turning them away). Little did we know our
experience with them was not yet over! After checking out of our hostel, our
next stop was the beautiful island of Miyajima. Miyajima (which means “shrine
island”) is known as one of the “Three Views of Japan,” three spots that were
deemed particularly beautiful by Japanese scholar Hayashi Gaho in the 1600’s.
It is home to one of the most famous shrines in Japan, Itsukushima. The shrine
is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and so is one of the major tourist attractions
of Hiroshima. The day we went was a national holiday so the island was
absolutely packed!
Ben about to eat a ferry
First view of the island and famous tori gate
We arrived on the island and were immediately greeted by the
tame deer that roam around the island. Deer are another sacred animal in Japan,
and so tame ones run free at some of the famous shrines and temples. They can
be kind of a nuisance though, as they come begging if you have food. But they’re
still pretty cute.
Deer butts
We walked around the island quite a bit and it was really
beautiful. The changing leaves were at their peak so the fall colors were out
in full force. As we were walking though, we got approached by another set of
Jehovah’s Witnesses… two in one day?! They were very nice just like the first
ones, but we just politely said we weren’t interested and moved on.
The island was packed and we were anxious to leave the
crowds, but we couldn’t skip the main attraction, Itsukushima Shrine. The
shrine is built on the shoreline in such a way that at high tide, water runs
underneath the entire shrine, but at low tide, the water goes out so far that
you can actually walk to the huge tori gate that Itsukushima is known for. It’s
pretty cool to walk around on the sand that was previously underwater, and see all
the hermit crabs. The shrine itself is interesting in that it’s built over the
ocean, but I’ve seen others that I liked more in terms of architecture. Still,
it’s a pretty cool spot.
People walking over the sand at low tide
After leaving the island, we drove to our hotel for the
night, and got ready for our next adventure: Bunny Island!
The next morning we got up bright and early to visit
Okunoshima, a small island in the Seto Inland Sea. We drove to a city about two
hours east of Hiroshima and from there, took a ten minute ferry ride to the
island. This island has a really interesting history; during and around World
War II, the military operated a poison gas factory there. It was kept a secret
from the general public, so much so that the island was even erased from some
maps. The factory shut down after the war, but the building is still there. It’s
thoroughly creepy. Poison gas really freaks me out so this place gave me the
heeby-jeebys. Thankfully, there were BUNNIES! Lots and lots of bunnies!
Apparently back in the 70’s when the island was uninhabited because of the gas
factory thing, some elementary school kids brought some of the bunnies they’d
been taking care of to the island and set them loose. Bunnies being bunnies,
there are now over 300 roaming around on the island. The island is famous
basically just for this reason, but it was also a really pretty spot. There was
a nice campground area and a pretty beach. I would love to go back and camp
there in the summer.
The port where we caught a boat to the island
A bunch of adorable bunny pics from here
The former gas factory
So we chilled with the bunnies for a couple hours and fed
them lots of cabbage and carrots. Then we hopped the ferry back to the mainland
and drove back to Hiroshima to have lunch with a couple of friends. We got
Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki which I had been DYING to eat. Okonomiyaki is kind
of like a savory pancake, made out of batter and cabbage and several other
toppings. The chefs cook it on a griddle right in front of you. Okonomiyaki
literally means “as you like it” so you can get several different kinds of meat
and vegetable fillings. In Japan, Hiroshima and Osaka are the two cities most
famous for okonomiyaki. In Osaka, the batter and cabbage is mixed together,
along with other veggies and meat, and then cooked. In Hiroshima, everything is
cooked separately, in layers. Hiroshima okonomiyaki also often includes noodles
and a cooked egg. Both styles are delicious and topped with some really tasty
sauces. The place we ate at was in a mall where the whole top floor was made up
of just okonomiyaki restaurants. AKA Heaven.
Flame-torching cheese on top. Also note the cute and awestruck baseball boys in the background :)
After our delicious lunch, we started our drive to our next
destination, Tsuwano. The drive was great because Ben drove for the first time,
giving me a little break :) I was a Nervous Nelly in the car though, since it was his first time and he had
to drive on the left side of the road and everything. But he did great! At the
very end of the drive, we had to go over a mountain and it was a terrifying ten
minutes. We were on a narrow, very windy mountain road with no lights
whatsoever. We stopped briefly and killed the headlights just to see what it
looked like and it was PITCH BLACK. So scary. But we made it back to
civilization thankfully and chilled out for the rest of the night.
The next morning, we explored a couple of the sights around
Tsuwano. It was a beautiful little town, surrounded by mountains and with a
gorgeous river running through it. There is a shrine there that was made as
sort of a copycat of a very famous shrine in Kyoto. It’s known for its
thousands of red tori gates along a trail leading up a mountain, and the
Tsuwano version was pretty similar to that.
On our drive
Tsuwano
There were koi fish swimming through these little creeks around downtown
So pretty
Climbing up the mountain, through the gates
After Tsuwano, I really wanted to take Ben to this spot
along the ocean that I had been to once before with friends. It has absolutely
spectacular views of the ocean and I would go there every day if it wasn’t a
5-hour drive away! See for yourself :)
After soaking in some ocean spray and warm fall sun, we made the long drive back home. It was such a great trip, with a great guy :) Next up, our trip to Tottori!
*I started this post at the beginning of winter break and
per usual, took two weeks to finish it, so break is now over. But I’m too lazy
to edit :)
