That was the range of my day today. Kind of expecting it but did not think I would actually have tears in my eyes.
I first wandered around the Peace Memorial Park preparing myself to go into the actual museum. Got an audio guide which proved to be very emotional and informative. The bombing completely leveled the city and even though it was war and they were expecting air raids, no one was expecting something this big. The pictures and stories were simply horrifying. I think the one that made the most impression on me was some life size wax representations of what it looked like a few minutes after the blast. A woman and two children with their skin hanging from their bodies like melted plastic…
At the exit my mood swung when a group of Japanese students started to say hello in English and were very happy when I asked to take their picture. The sun came out – that helped a lot as well.

For the second half of my day I went to Miyajima. I was actually not expecting much from this island full of shrines close to Hiroshima (1 hour by tram + 10 minutes on a ferry). Right off the ferry I was greeted by some deer! They roam around freely in the island and in the city! The natural beauty of the place was stunning. The cable car that usually takes people up to the top of this 500m high island was out of service so I walked up one of the climbing paths (2km) and was rewarded at the end by a beautiful view and a very good energy along the entire way. Beautiful town, very traditional and some impressive shrines and temples.


Tomorrow I head to Kyoto then back to Tokyo. Next week I still have to decide where to go.

So the rain subdued and I went out for a walk and dinner.
Dinner proved to be harder than I thought… unlike Tokyo there are very few menus with pictures or any signs in English for that matter.
The lights, billboards and many stores and video game/slot parlors look just like Tokyo. Well, Hiroshima is a big city – 1.5 million inhabitants.
Anyway, ate some noodles, saw the A-dome and went into a video game place… off to another early start tomorrow to see the Peace Memorial Park and museum and then go to Miyama – one of the most visited/photographed sites in Japan. Let’s see 🙂

Just played around with the view from Max’s apt yesterday night.

Woke up early today and caught the train to Hiroshima… sounds simple? Not really… first went to the Shinjuku Station at 8am. The JR exchange office only opened at 11 so I had to go to Tokyo Station. After going into the wrong entrance, a very nice man lead me to the correct entrance. In the station I went to 4 different JR ticketing offices to finally get to the one that exchanged my purchased ticket into the actual pass.
With incredible punctuality, the train left at 9:36am. I happened to be sitting right where the train officer dispatches the train from the platform. He was looking at the clock (with seconds) and as soon as 9:35 flipped over to 9:36 he pressed a green button and 15 seconds later the train started moving. They say you can set your watch to the JR trains.
The ride is very comfortable and when you think it is going fast, it accelerates even more. The train I was in went up to 300km/h (188mph)!
The landscape, well, not much open country – all the way to Hiroshima (a 4 hour train ride) it is all built up with many rice fields in between houses and buildings. Very pretty how rice is always completely flat and level.
Into Hiroshima I took an old tram to the center of town and found a hotel that has internet in the room. As I was about to step outside rain started pouring down, so now I am here in the room blogging 🙂
For now, here is a quick video of the train itself:

Well, in China most of the bathrooms are crouch-down style.
In Japan it’s a different story…

Even the bike garage at Max’s place is pretty cool…

The packaging here is also awesome… it is all thought out… guess it comes from the Origami tradition 🙂

Today I went on the bike to the Shinjuku Gardens, Imperial Palace, Ginza, Hama-rikyu Gardens and the Tokyo Dome (by mistake).
Inside the Shijuku Garden there is an active temple where people go to pray and to leave wishes on a tree… very interesting place and energy in it.

The Imperial Palace is truly impressive in terms of size. It is surrounded by a water filled ditch and beautiful gardens that are tended to daily. Didn’t actually go inside since I am going to Kyoto and I was told I will see some even nicer places + you don’t really see the entire palace inside – only the gardens.

After that I headed towards the Hama-rikyu Gardens but stopped in Ginza. Took a look at the “famous” Sony building and ate some lunch (Tomkatsu again – delicious). This is Tokyo’s 5th Ave – all the major shops are here – could not find the Prada store – well, OK, didn’t look for it that hard 🙂

On the bike again, I took a look at a map on the streets and decided to in one direction according to that map. I kept going confidently and saw an amusement park! Great! I am going to stop here. I must be close to the ocean, and close to the Hama-rikyu Gardens because I remember seeing that big ferris wheel on the way in from the airport. In any case, went in and hopped on to the roller coaster ride – truly amazing ride – very steep, fast, and curvy… all that for a bargain of USD10 🙁

On the way out I saw some street names, pulled out the map to try to get my bearings… nothing… could not find the name. Showed the map to the girl at the information desk and to my amazement her finger kept running farther and farther North… I had gone in the complete opposite direction I thought I was going. I was astonished at my sense of direction here… it usually is very good. I looked at one of those maps on the street again now to realize why I was so off… the maps are not oriented North-South… the are oriented with respect to your view at that moment… North was on the left part of the map!! Another factor is that the sun was not out so I had no idea what way was East and West.
Finally I reached the gardens after a great ride along with some other messengers – there are quite a few of them here – all with very trendy looking bikes. The garden was worth the search… very beautiful and peaceful… which made me realize that Tokyo is a very quiet city… very little honking, people speak softly (except for when you arrive at a restaurant – they announce that there is a new customer). Everyone is very polite – everything is very clean – he attention to the details reflects their gentle and delicate manners.

Ah! There is absolutely no smoking on the streets (there are designated smoking corners where people gather around to get their fix) – but getting around is a little tricky if it is not close to a train/subway station since there are not many street names on the streets themselves and on the maps. Kind of strange… it seems like it is all done by referencing buildings and stores.

First night in town Max, Anais and I went out for dinner at Ropongi. We picked a random place and had some great skewers. The subway system here is incredible and easy to use. Taxis are outrageously expensive. The cab ride from the airport is around USD 240!! I took the bus that still cost around USD 30. Fortunately the place where Max is staying is only a 5 minute walk from one of the drop off points (Shinjuku Station).
The following day I did some house work, i.e., laundry! Had no more clean clothes. Then assembled my bike and went for a reconnaissance/getting lost bike ride. Lost completely my sense of direction – on purpose. Wounded up in some very quaint residential areas. After about 2 hours biking around I finally asked for directions back home. The hardest part though was once I got to Shinjuku Station. I could not find the street to Max’s place. I found the South Entrance – had to go to the West Entrance – but there is no real visible building from the streets – it’s almost all underground! It took me about 45 minutes to finally find his street. Ok – it did not help that I forgot to bring a map, did not know the name of his street, and was too stubborn to stop and buy a map. In any case, after a while I finally recognized the street where the bus had dropped me off the previous day.
At night we went to a huge night club in the outskirts of Tokyo called Ageha. A friend of a friend of Anais just moved back to Tokyo and was celebrating with some of his friends. The place is huge with about 5 different areas, including an outdoor pool area. Hero’s friends were very cool – they all did their MBA in Columbia and were now traveling as well.
Today if decided not to take the bike to take some pictures and experience walking the city. It was very easy moving around in the subways. You pay depending on which is your exit point. LCD screens show you where the train is, which is the next station, how long it’s going to take to each subsequent station, and even which side the doors will open.
I first walked through a park close by to see some Japanese gardens – had to pay to get into the park – about USD 2.
I then went to Akihabara – the tech shopping area. Cell phones are like chewing gum lined up in racks – all colors, shapes and sizes. They even have a Pantone color scheme line… GPS, cameras, security equipment and obviously some entire buildings with video games.
Ate some Tomkatsu at a street restaurant and went to Harajuku where the young punk/gothic/exhibitionist hang out. At first I felt funny about taking their pictures but then I realized that they were there for exactly that – they want the attention.
Here are the pictures: