Hiroshima Visit!!

Day 1

Upon arriving to Hiroshima, we dropped our bags off at our hotel and went right to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Here there is a museum, monuments, a park, and many nostalgic places that represent the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The Museum was very interesting a lot of insight on what Hiroshima was before and after the atomic bomb. At the museum, I was approached by some students who were more than eager to speak English with me. This was a unique encounter! Given the homogeneity of Japan, foreigners to Japanese are kind of rare. I think these kids expressed interest in speaking with me because then they could practice what they have been learning in their English class. I also got another unique encounter when a worker at the museum began to give a me a lecture on some statistics of the bombing and war, all in English. This was great! It is another unique encounter because I was surprised that this older woman could speak English so well. The kids are being taught English in school, but older folk are less likely to know English.

After the visit to the museum we had the day spend. I decided that I wanted to see a castle nearby, Hiroshima castle. In the bombing this castle was completely whipped out, but they worked to rebuild it in the late 50s.

 

Day 2

Our second day in Hiroshima was spent traveling to Miyajima Island, where Mt Misen is located. This island mountain was extremely fun! A great hiking trail too (about 1 km long). We had a cable car that took us up about 500 of meters above sea level, and then we hiked our way to the peak of the mountain. 535 meters above sea level!! To the left is a picture of me standing at the peak of Mt. Misen!

Also on Miyajima Island we walked through the shrine known as the Itsukushima Shrine, pictures below. Here I learned the significance of torii's for Shinto shrines (the big orange gate). Also we learned that different shrines have different areas of focus. This shrine is used to worship the deities of sea, traffic safety, fortune, and accomplishment.

 

Then after our voyage to Miyajima Island and back we went to a Hiroshima Carps baseball game!! It was very fun to see all the fans cheering on the game. A definition of the collective society in Japan was exhibited during the baseball game. Everyone was chanting together. There was not any hecklers or individualist who thought to start the wave on their own... this was a collective group of fans all cheering for the same team, the carps. There was a section in the upper deck where the away team had their fan base. I thought that this was interesting because there was a lot of empty seats here, in the away teams section, yet across the whole rest of stadium every seat was filled.