Itsukushima

After the gloom-laden morning in Hiroshima and a spot of lunch, Kawai, Miyawaki and I decided on a trip to Itsukushima. This Shinto Temple is on a rather beautiful off-shore island, and is world heritage listed while

several other buildings and artifacts are  listed as Japanese National Treasures.

Getting there was slightly complex. I needed some cash badly and so we headed off in search of a bank whose automatic tellers would accept a foreign credit card and tell me how to extract money in English. That took an extra 30 minutes or so in suburban Hiroshima.

Then we needed to get to Miyajimaguchi, a little port from which the ferries departed. We decided to take a tram, which is not the fastest means of transport and

spent perhaps 45 minutes ambling out of Hiroshima and southwards down the coast. Parts of the journey threw interesting light on life in a large Japanese city, but I was glad to get to Miyajimaguchi.

There, the trip rapidly became a lot more interesting and we bought a cheap ticket across to the other side with one of the two ferry companies frequently plying the route. The first picture shows the recently departed JR ferry with Itsukushima island in the background. The island was shrouded in mist and low cloud, as the picture shows and it reminded me of some of the more mysterious and romantic travel

brochures one sees.

The first pleasant surprise on getting off the ferry were the deer roaming freely over the island. They were unconcerned about the movements of humans, and someone like Max could easily have gone up and patted one.

After giving the tourist shops the slip, we walked along the island foreshores towards the Shinto shrine. You can see me here in front of what I suppose is the Temple entrance guarded by some stone animals of dubious existence. One thing that had immediately

impressed me about the island was the large number of children roaming around. Obviously, this was a top tourist destination for families.

Turning a corner, we saw one of the images of Japan often portrayed on travel brochures: the 'arch' standing in the placid waters of the bay, with the mountains of the mainland in the background. It was a very beautiful sight, enhanced as I mentioned before by the gray skies, misty clouds and, now, the falling of light rain.

We all posed for pictures in front of the structure and, since you've seen me, I show Kawai and Miyawaki. There was a constant scramble my a large number of people to take this kind of souvenir photo.

We ambled around the temple complex and reached the rather attractive inner sanctum shown sixth photo. I joined with my hosts in what must be a Shinto ritual of tossing some coins into a very large box, bowing to what I presume is a kind of Altar, and - except for me - clapping one's hands. I would have liked to have struck the large drum, which took my mind back to a

an evening I once attended in Armidale of Japanese drumming performed by a professional group.

And so we moved on in heavier rain to return to the ferry past a rather beautiful temple tower ... I do not know the proper name of this structure. However, I am sure you'll agree with me that it is very attractive. The voyage back to Hiroshima was much faster than our arrival because we took a local train rather than the tram. There I bought a Shinkansen ticket for Okayama and soon departed in the gathering gloom of evening for Doo-Chul's home.

This bought to an end a perfect day helped greatly by Kawai's and Miyawaki's kind assistance. They even presented me with a little wooden souvenir of the temple, which was very kind. Thanks, guys, for a memorable occasion.

AS

The First Ground Zero

I went on a kind of pilgrimage today to see the site of an event that occurred just 52 days after I was born, and the destination was Hiroshima whose population is now 1.175 million, up from 400,000 at the time of that famous event on 6 August 1945. Nearly everything in the city post-dates 1945 when the first atomic bomb in the world roasted the city centre. So, around 9.00 this morning I boarded alone the Shinkansen from Okayama for the short (50 minute) journey over the 140km between the two cities. However, I was met at the other end by two postgraduate students from Hiroshima, Kawai Toyaaki and Miyawaki Kentari.

 Both are pictured here outside the Honkawa National School, which was closer to ground zero than just about any other building in the city. More about that school later.

The most obvious symbol of the bombing was the Commercial Exhibition Hall, whose twisted steel dome is THE symbol of Hiroshima's disaster (second picture). This, and the school building, are two remnants still standing of the pre-war city. We saw plenty of maps and models showing the utter devastation wrought on the city. Within a 3 km
radius, just about everything except reinforced

 concrete was vaporised.

The third picture shows a modern bridge on the site of the one almost directly under the explosion. The bridge was half-way between the exhibition centre and the school.

Nearby is the site of the fourth picture which is the children's memorial. Many died, but a 2 yo girl survived until she contracted Leukemia at the age of 10 and died. The sadness of this event led to a campaign to construct such a memorial funded by subscriptions from Japan and other countries.

The fifth picture shows the ceremonial avenue connecting the current museum (behind where the picture was taken) and the convention hall. The museum comprehensively records the events on that fateful August day. It covers the choice of cities to attack,

 the nature of the atomic weapon and its origins, the bombing mission itself, pictures and memories of the explosion, the dynamics of the fire-ball and its spread, and - most harrowing of all - the horrific things it did to people, and why most injuries sustained could not be treated. The museum also traced the attempts to restore some life to the city and eventually re-build it.

I walked around the exhibits listening to English commentaries on the artifacts and exhibits, with well over 50 separate commentaries.

 We found the famous Chinese Parasol Tree which was severely damaged by the explosion less than 1km from ground zero. However, its hollowed out and blackened trunk survived and regenerated before the tree was relocated to just outside the museum - a symbol of hope and regeneration.

Finally, we headed off to the Honkawa school and looked around the blackened walls of the gaunt surviving part of the structure located in the current school grounds. It was eerie see the inside of a building that took the full force of the explosion. The final picture shows a little of what the building looks like today.

After a whole morning on our feet, we finally decided on some lunch at a nearby cafe. Our day was not however over as the next post shows!

 AS

Kurashiki

 After a night in rural Japan, our party, including me and the Kohmotos, set out for Kurashiki, a major tourist destination near Okayama. This little town is 16 km west of Okayama and, in a sense, a suburb of that city (population of the prefecture is about 450,000). Now, Okayama was bombed heavily in the second world , though it didn't receive the extreme treatment of Hiroshima 140km away. Kurashiki came away unscathed and the reason for that unfolded during my visit. Basically, General McArthur told his forces not to touch Kurashiki for much the same set of reasons that Rome, Paris, Prague, Venice and places of that ilk were spared.

The place to head to is the Bikan area which is a remnant of old Japan stuffed with museums, canals, little alleys with craftsmen's workshops, old factories converted to recreational use, and some nice homes. I cannot do justice to this landscape here, but a few pictures may well help. I got the impression that I was looking at something similar to the pioneering new towns built by British industrialists in the 19th century - New Lanark, Bourneville, and Port Sunlight came to mind.

The first picture shows one of the many alleys, and the second a walkway along one of the canal embankments. Both were restful and serene. The third picture shows the now four Kohmotos looking at one of the pleasant residences not far from the canals like the ones shown in the fourth and fifth pictures. Note the carp in the foreground of both of these pictures. The canals were swarming with fish, which no doubt attracted the bird shown in the sixth


picture.There were also some interesting modes of transport like the punt in the next picture and the rickshaw in the last one, both designed to trap the tourist dollar.

After a quick lunch, we headed to the one great attraction of the Bikan / Kurashiki area, and the one that no doubt exercised McArthur's mind more that the rest put together. That's the Ohara museum of art. That's also Ohara and not O'Hara! Alas, I cannot show you any pictures of the museum's interior. However, you might be stunned to learn that this smallish gallery in a small town perched on the edge of Asia  housed paintings by the likes of (in alphabetical order):
Aman-Jean, Bourdelle, Cezanne, Claus, Corot, Cottet, Courbet, Degas, Denis, El Greco, Frederic, Gauguin, Guerin, Laermans, Manet, Millet, Modigliani, Monet, Moreau, Pissarro, and Le Sidaner. These artists are mainly end 19 and early 20th century impressionists (El Greco excepted), but there were also works by Paul Klee Jackson Pollock and other modernists. See:
http://www.ohara.or.jp/200707/eng/.

How did this constellation of paintings find a home in western Japan. Basically, a local art lover and industrialist funded one of Japan's leading artists in the western mode to go to Europe with a cheque-book. To round up up art-works that seemed bridge the gap between European and Japanese traditions.

There's not more I can say. If you go the gallery's web page you may be able to download some of the pictures. The gallery also attracted a young audience with art-related competitions and something I considered delightful. One painting had a man swinging an axe. So, the gallery painted a similar

background to the picture's on a wall and then invited kids to pick up a mock axe and try to simulate the picture hanging in front of them. Cameras were working over-time as kids took it in turns to simulate the art.

AS

Takebe

Yesterday morning, Doo-Chul and I set off for Takebe Town where I was to meet up with Daichi Kohmoto, a fellow delegate at the Galway meeting described in earlier posts. He and his family, pictured here, met us at one of the best Soba restaurants in the Okayama region. The father and mother were both retired teachers. This was also the first of two successive lunches where the table was only about 10 cm off the ground and I was supposed to sit on my heels like everyone else. Unused to that position, I compromised in both instances by placing my feet in front of me under the table. Once again, I had a very interesting meal that looked nothing like anything I have at home. Look up Soba on the internet and remember that I had buckwheat noodles as my base. Later in the day, I was to meet up with several of his relatives in the public cemetery and I'm almost certain that there were two shrines in my bedroom for them also!


Since I was to stay with Daichi over-night, we went to his nearby home before heading into Takebe and then up into the hills. The whole trip was a great insight into the tortuous dynamics of Japanese rural life. Daichi's retired parents lived in a long-owned but comfortable family home. As in Okayama, I was allocated a Tatami mat for the night, and shoes are parked at the door.


Pleasantries over, we jumped into Doo-Chul's car for a survey of the countryside. First stop was a farmers' market shown here. Basically these stock local produce which households exchange, and I gather
that such communities are fairly self sufficient. Takebe probably had about 200 households resident and it seems that each household has one rice paddy and one vegetable plot, each handed down through the generations. These may generate surpluses, which can end up in the markets. There seems to be no substantial out-of-town traffic, although the areas we'll look at in a minute have high environmental quality.

The next slide takes us to a Buddhist Temple, a very beautiful spot. It shows a c. 800 year old Ginkgo tree near the entrance, but I do not know its significance in
a devotional sense. Japanese readers please let me know what the inscriptions mean! There were many different temple buildings each housing one of the several versions of Buddhism and some communal facilities for all people.

God and Mammon were, however, close at hand and nearby street leading to the temple had long served pilgrims or worshipers en route to the temple. After the temple, we took to the hills via winding and dangerous looking roads.

The main attraction up the hill was a series of spectacular tier rice paddies, with water fed by a quite elaborate irrigation system in which each farmer had specific obligations and entitlements. Remember that I said all (or perhaps most) residents had land entitlements. Well, the terraces here are in multiple ownership and, with few sellers, the scope for consolidation of holdings and resultant efficiencies is negligible. In effect, the countryside is ossified. To make matters worse, most owners left to tend the paddies and weed the fields are retired, and many are 70+. The result is that some of the terraces are unattended. This brought home to me something else I was seeing ... no children! I gather one local school had just closed , though not in Takebe itself. In fact, you're seeing a countryside, beautiful as it looks, in crisis, and one that's probably terminal in its present form. Twenty years from now, depopulation will be rampant, and fields might be left untended on a large
scale.

The slide alongside shows a nice scene that caught my eye, and which may be related to population ageing. To protect their fields, active farmers have taken to a modern technology: electric fences to keep vandals out. The vandals, by the way are wild boar and monkeys.

The next picture shows a view over Takebe from the top of the cemetery, a long hike for me up a flight of steps. As you can see the little town is fairly spread out, and each of the paddies in the middle ground is separately owned and managed. Daichi's parents have one block somewhere in there.

I couldn't resist the next picture because it's common all over Japan: wires strung everywhere rather than underground! This could be useful in a major earthquake, enabling faster re-connection. Severed underground cables could weeks or months to rectify. Still some of Japan's residential areas are not really things of beauty.

Finally, Takebe has at least three other industries, all shown here. The first picture shows the site of white water canoeing / slalom practice. On the far shore is a hot-springs bathing facility. Both men and women among my readers might like to know the dress code for the use of this - and several other facilities. The answer is nothing. Yes, starkers. I actually had one such personal experience of this in central Japan, though not on this trip.

Then, there's fishing. We saw at least two anglers wading the waters as shown here. Well, that's it for the moment. Rural Japan might not wow the younger generation, but it's pleasant enough for we oldies ... except perhaps when it comes to the hot baths.

AS

Taken for a Ride

On a hot and sticky morning yesterday, I left my Osaka hotel for a quick trip to Okayama. Already, at 8.30 am, the temperature must have been >30C, as I trudged the 10 minutes on foot to Shin-Osaka station trailing my suitcase behind me and laden with a heavy back-pack. I've discovered that Shin means 'new' in Japanese. And  the journey was quick. The 150km took just 45 minutes, including one stop at Shin Kobe. Of course, I was travelling on one of these:

a Shinkansen (tr. Bullet Train). The one I caught was exactly like these shown here - all 16 coaches in length -  and I had seat 1a in car 15.

The journey was more or less silent on track reserved only for the Shinkansen, and the train barely swayed from side to side. I had an aircraft style seat with plenty of leg-room and it was interesting to see the highly urbanised Japanese country flash past me. Alas, I cannot show you and of the scenery because for much of the time the line was screened from view by partial barriers or tunnels. What I can comment on is some interesting aspects of Japanese life. The train seemed to come with a large retinue of staff who actually didn't seem to do much other than bow politely at the door to the carriage. I've noticed this situation frequently in shops, around the streets, in stations, or wherever. So, there's a world class high-tech economy perched on the back of a lot of low-level jobs, which seems to work quite well as unemployment and income disparities are low. And another strange, but frequent, sight is that of residential developments with rice paddies and vegetable gardens in the middle. Doo-chul, with whose family I am staying in Okayama, took me for an after-dinner and after-dark stroll through his neighbourhood and we saw large numbers of these agricultural enterprises on pocket-handkerchief sized blocks of land.

Just one final comment. It would be nice to travel from say, Canberra to Sydney in maybe 90 minutes by high-speed train. However, to be blunt I cannot see how such a system could deliver competitive fares in Australia and turn a profit without MASSIVE subsidies. I gather the system in Japan is also subsidised, but at least there's a dense route network traversed by numerous large trains with short head-ways. While I awaited my train at Shin-Osaka, I counted trains departing at about every 4 minutes, each 16 cars long and full of passengers  That makes, on crude calculation, about 15 x 16 x 80 people departing Osaka for somewhere or other every hour. That's nearly 20,000 passengers an hour. Can anyone envisage even 2000 people per hour wanting to leave Sydney on a bullet train for some local destination? At that rate of patronage the system would have to run at a thundering great loss. My guess is that a similar system in the UK would also be hugely loss making, despite a larger and much more densely packed population than Australia. Get real!

AS

Osaka Castle

This post takes you through a quick tour of the Castle and its surrounding parkland, much of it in the order I saw things. After a train journey through Osaka's inner suburbs, I alighted at Morinomiya station and entered the Castle grounds across the street. The first sights were the fountain shown here, a bit of respite on a hot day, and the outer moat - quite a ditch!

The came views of two turrets (the first of which is the the Ichiban turret, and the second, which  also shows the outer moat) and a Shinto Shrine.

Then I walked through the main Sakuramon (Cherry) Gate, which accesses the inner Baily. The original version was built in 1626, but that burned down like a lot of the castle at various times, so the one here dates from 1887.

The main feature of the inner Baily is the Castle, pictured here. It's on the site of a former monastery / temple dating back to 1496, but the first fortress was constructed by the man who united Japan, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, in the late 16th century (c. 1583). He did what the Emperor Qin did for China ... see an earlier post of mine this year. Versions of this Castle burned to the ground in 1665 and 1868, so today's structure only dates from 1931 and is celebrating its 80th anniversary at this moment.

The interior is a museum, not unlike the Tower of London. There are models of the Castle compound at various stages, works of art, letters about generals and negotiations, Japanese screens depicting events, suits of armour, three dimensional holograms of key events, and so on. The second picture above shows some gilt objects on display. All, by the way, had an English translation, which was very useful.

AS

Another Day, Another Country

Greetings from, of all places, Osaka in Japan. I arrived at about 8 am and, by about 10 am arrived at my hotel near the Shin-Osaka railway station. This is the station I'll depart from tomorrow morning at 9am for the hour long journey to Okayama - the reason for my visit - so it was useful to have an inexpensive hotel, the Toyoko Inn, close by. By the time I got to the hotel, I'd been on the road for over 20 hours from London via Frankfurt and had managed 5 hours sleep. However much I needed some more, not to mention a wash and change of clothing, I could not access my room until 6 hours later!

So ditching my bags and armed with Y13,000 I headed for the region's main tourist attraction, Osaka Castle. By the way, the long journey from the airport to Shin-Osaka was fully urbanised, so I began wondering how many people live in the Osaka region, which is possibly Japan's Industrial / Commercial heartland. I quick surf of the internet came up with an astonishing figure. The Keihanshin region, which also includes Kyoto and Nara, has 18 million people, a little less than the whole of Australia! En route to the Castle (no pun intended for those in Santa Clara), I also booked my Shinkansen ticket to Okayama - more about that trip in another post. The cost of the journey stunned me. My one-way ticket came to Y6,260 or about A$85, so it might have been cheaper to take a taxi.It's certainly more expensive than this hotel. By the way, I managed all this, and the subsequent trip to the Castle, with only two words of Japanese: sayonara (auf wiedersehen or au revoir) and konichiwa (hello). This place is quite easy to navigate!

This post shows photos taken from the top (8th) floor of the Castle where there's a viewing platform over the whole city. It's a bit like New York or Paris where, the Empire State building or the Eiffel Tower provide panoramas of those cities. So, if you're interested in views over a city region of 18 million people have a look at the next four pictures:

The third of the pictures shows a low part of the central mountains of Honshu. By the time I took these shots, I was flagging in the 35C and 90% humidity ... it's the monsoon season. Fortunately, so far, there has been none of the forecast rain, though our flight path took us over sodden looking Beijing.

AS

Greenway

I've just provided you with a post on Dartmouth, but that wasn't really our destination, which was this place set among rolling Devonshire hills and valleys:

We obviously have a largish country home, but perhaps not that of the nobility. Who owns most of the large homes visited by the British these day? Well, the National Trust. Well done. You're looking at a National Trust property of some wealthy family somewhere near Dartmouth. Can you see any other clues as to where we are? Probably not, so I'll provide you with one more picture:

This is a bit of a give-away. Of course, you're looking at Agatha Christie's summer retreat, Greenway, high above the Dart valley near Dartmouth. I suspect that Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple would have arrived at the answer more quickly. The house is maintained almost exactly how she left it back in the 1960s, but visitors are not allowed to take pictures inside. I respected this, but have the official guide which you can borrow to see the family's living quarters.

Apart from the very interesting house, where an attendant even played Agatha's favourite piano pieces on her Steinway, there were attractive and extensive grounds. I was taken by the head gardener on a tour and he not only knew his plants, but also Agatha herself ... he'd been there so long. The final picture shows an exhibition of contemporary sculpture in an area close to the house. By the way, the famous crime author was one of a long line of owners going back to the 16th century.

It's a nice outing one can only recommend, especially if you wish to relive post-war Britain.

AS

Dartmouth

Another day, another trip. Saturday saw me heading to delightful Dartmouth, along with Brian, Daphne and Laura. Have a look at the pictures below to see what I mean. Alas, the cold and damp weather conditions detract from the images.

The town lies along the right (western) bank of the river Dart, which strangely enough flows off Dartmoor. It is a wide and powerful river, and safe anchorage for hundreds of pleasure-craft, a couple of vehicle ferries, and a variety of cruise vessels.

Dartmouth (the second picture) is draped for quite a distance along the river bank, with Kingswear (the third picture) on the opposite side of the river.

Dartmouth is an old town, with lots of picturesque buildings, including some half-timbered items. It also employs a town crier, a relict position of the 19th and earlier centuries. This town crier, complete with bell and loud voice, welcomed visitors arriving in the ferries and sight-seeing vessels. Come to think of it, Armidale - my home town - could do with one of these gentlemen. His garb brightened up an otherwise dull and cool day.

Dartmouth is also home to the UK's Naval Academy, located high up on a wooded hillside to the north of the town. It's imposing by any standard, even when compared to the US version in Annapolis reported in the pages back in 2008.

AS