The Lucky One, Hiroshima (Part Deux)

Its been a crazy hectic week this week. So, I’ll do my best to catch up on the trip to Hiroshima and all that’s been going on. But first, a bit of odd Japanese culture observance. Of the fashion trends in Japan, the obsession by women to maintain the whitest skin possible is one that astonishes me in little ways all the time. When I first arrived it was the number of women carrying around parasols and wearing arm coverings in the HOT and HUMID weather! It's a faux pas to wear sleeveless here, so on top of their short sleeved outfits they wear another sleeve to cover their arms completely! If that wasn't funny enough, when I went to the drug store to look at buying some sunblock, low and behold, 50+ is the most common. But wait, there’s more! Its 50+ and whitening!  So… I think Japanese women are aiming to become transparent.

Ok so now on to Hiroshima. The four hour drive was nothing but beautiful while I was awake. Mountains, Mountains, Mountains! I love it here with all the mountains! To get to Hiroshima by car, you have to drive over a bridge that will take you to the Mainland, Honshu (I live on Kyshu). It's a gorgeous bridge and we stopped to take pictures in front of it. As we drove through Honshu.. I’m sorry but I passed out. I have no idea how the scenery changed. Car rides=Nap time for me.

Miyajima is the most popular tourist destination outside of Tokyo and that is exactly where my family took me. I admit I would have liked to just wander on my own accord a bit but they wanted to hit as many of the tourists spots as possible. So, I took a picture in front of the giant orange gateway, walked around the floating temple (its on stilts, don't worry its not really floating) gazed at the 5-tier Pagoda from the meditation building, and ate oysters, the most popular dish on the island.

It was great but I was plum tuckered out after all that excitement, we went to our hotel, cleaned up and had Hiroshima’s signature dish. Okonomiyaki. To describe it is hard. Some Japanese explain it as Japanese pizza but its not like pizza in the sense of food you can eat with your hands, has a crust and is loaded with cheese and tomato sauce. Perhaps it is more like if pizza met a pancake and had a baby.

Weird?  Well, than I successfully eliminated the idea of pizza out of your mind. Ok, its like pancake in that it has a batter, you top it off with sauce and usually eat it with a fork. Its like pizza in that you can put many types of savory ingredients in it. Hiroshima is known for putting soba (noodles much like ramen but thick like spaghetti) inside. As for the ingredients, its usually filled with squid, shrimp, cabbage and topped off with a special sauce and mayonnaise. The Japanese obsession with mayo is a rant for another time.

The next day was my last day in Hiroshima and while I didn't get to climb Mt. Misen, (a popular scenic trail up a mountain) We did go to one of the most famous gardens, which was lovely and filled with lots of hungry carp and turtles! It was lush and green and full of cicadas. The next stop was The Peace Museum. While I was prepared for it to be an emotional experience, I was relieved that it while it outlined that America dropped two nuclear bombs, it focused more on the tragedies and the importance of not repeating history, rather than blame. Peace Park just outside the Museum is beautifully designed with a gateway that lines up the Peace Flame (that burns eternally) and the empty shell of  the Hospital that became a monument and testament to those who survived. 

We happened to visit on August 16^th, which is the symbolic day that Japan recognizes as the end of the war. So while everything was crowded, there is just something about Japanese culture that makes being in a crowd a lot less unnerving than it would in the states. So, I enjoyed my visit to this legendary place and was very happy to see the Monument to Sadako and the thousands of cranes people all over Japan and the world send here.