Himeji, Kobe & Hiroshima
Day 34 - 25 May
As M has no japan wide ticket, and no green class, he grabs an alternative JR East pass, and we set our sights on Himeji, passing by Kobe we realize it might be worth coming here for dinner.
We don't even need to book much of a ticket, unreserved sections are more than enough for us, as we go sporadically in between places, we end up in Himeji, see the castle from the station and walk our way towards it. It's a much larger castle than Osaka with all the buildings preserved around it, and the main wooden structure with all the pillars that hold it up, again a marvel for photographers during Sakura or Autumn seasons.
The castle grounds do keep us entertained in history for a while but we realise we might be done quicker with this than we expected, so we decide on the spot to head for lunch to Kobe. i do spot two previous guys from our bike tour yesterday, but they are busy in their own world so my invite for dinner at Kobe falls upon deaf ears. We take the next train to Kobe and arrive around 1.30pm, usually restaurants stop serving at 2 or 3pm. We see one that was on the list of best Kobe beefs, we have a bit of trouble finding it, as again, looking for Kanji and no idea of the floor, we arrive at the chef and assistant, eating their own lunch, but they are keen to serve us, as we understood the price of 100g is roughly 10,000 yen, or 60Gbp in our currency.
We still grab 100g each, to taste it, one does not to go to Kobe, without this, and the full experience, with rice and veggies, being cooked in front of us, all tenderly and medium-rare, mostly rare on the inside, is worth it. I do believe this would cost maybe £200 in London, so I don't complain, the only thing I notice is my normal card is missing, so I pay it on credit for now, trying to find where my card was gone, turns out M had it all the time in his wallet from the previous day for some reason. No matter, I have another few backups.
The steak was great, but since we're in Kobe, we might as well see a bit more, we decide to head towards Chinatown and the Marina, it's underwhelming but fine. We see there's only one more thing to do in Kobe, which is an observatory, called like billion dollar view or something, it passes through a giant herbs garden, as we ride up a gondola to the mountain top. I realize that a lot of towns in Japan have these elements, Towers, mountains with a cable car to take you straight up, and the view called X amount of dollars, this is a recurring theme in my future travels.
We see from the top, we can even see Osaka from this top actually, which I did not realize the curvature of the island and Kobe relation to Osaka, we catch the next train and arrive back, we search for a special Katsu Curry place inside the Umeda station, 50 layers of malls upon malls, eventually finding it, it was pretty good.
Tomorrow, we need to catch an earlier shinkansen, towards Hiroshima.
Day 36 - 25 May
As early as 8am, we board the Shinkansen to Hiroshima, passing again through Kobe, and a few other spots.
We arrive 9.30, find the tour operator, holding the tiniest sign of a company we do not recognize until later browsing through Airbnb reservations, notice that is indeed the company we need.
The woman, who is probably late 50s or more, shows us to the bus, the bus rides a tiny loop around the castle of HIroshima, she points you can take pictures from the bus, as we won't be stopping, she also points out some other buildings until we arrive to the Atomic bomb dome, and she begins the tour, with her huge dossier full of pictures, and explanations of where the bomb, why this spot and so on... very well detailed.
We continue through the rest of the peace park, pass by a few dozens of children delivering the peace cranes to a nearby memorial of Sakako, saying that if you fold 1000 cranes, you get your wish realized, it's a full school activity, as they have cabinets full of them in front of her statue holding one.
We reach the museum and the tour guide gives us about an hour to see for ourselves, the first few rooms are deeply sad.
But describe the bomb in such a profound way, mentioning it was an instant, without any discrimination, soldier, farmer, man, woman or child, 140 thousand people just ceased from one moment to another.
Then the museum continues to explore the days after, the hopelessness, the lack of any help... I think during the first few rooms a lot of people just sob in their own ways, and they settle in, as the museum continues to discuss the construction of the A-bomb, the tests, and we will probably see this in Oppenheimer movie in a few months.
The museum is done, and we need to head to lunch, there's a famous restaurant called Mi-chan, which does okonomiyaki hiroshima style, I have a bigger portion as M is still sick. Miyajima Island awaits.
We arrive, take the ferry, still guided by the tour guide, we follow through the main shopping street, see some dear, she explains about the temple, there's always a wedding going on, she says that women have to wear that white hat to the temple, because of the demon horns. We have some free time, to see a bit more, to drink a bit more. The island is full of setouchi lemons, so I pass by every stall and grab every possible pastry, beer or ice cream that is full of lemon goodness.
The island is worth maybe 1 hour of exploring, and then we head back to the ferry, and to the bus, as the tour is almost over, there are a few more jokes the tour guides shares with us and drops us off at the station. We decide to stay for a tiny bit more, go the a local pub and the idea of visiting the baseball game appears. I have no clue how or how expensive it might be, but the idea is seeded.
We eat a pizza, drink another beer, and head towards our shinkansen back to hotel, decided we should find out about the tickets to the game. As we come back to hotel, I research and understand you can get a ticket from any convenience store.
We rest.
Day 37 - 26 May
Morning in Osaka, goes smoothly, we get the tickets from a Lawson convenience store, apparently you can buy every single ticket in the Japanese universe of events from convenience store, doing menial chores and snacking, around 3pm we slowly head to Hiroshima, to see the mighty Carps play against Chinichi Dragons, which for some reaons have a Koala as mascot.
The atmosphere around the stadium is great, we get some jerseys and grab a few beers, we see that a lot of people come here basically bringing their own booze and foods, use the tables and barely care about the game. We sit in the homerun area, but the chances of that are quite slim. The tickets costed around 20 Gbp, and that's because we're not really members. The game starts with some Mascots dancing around, some balls being thrown into the audience, and general anthem singing. The anthem could not be more army style, patriotic, with the BGM composed in the 60s and never changed probably.
The pacing is pretty slow, I take pictures, we see people's reactions, but in general, it's an individualistic game that until a speciifc player comes up, a lot of people seem to disregard the game. Everyone keeps eating, There's a gym overlooking the stadium as well, so a lot of people doing workout and watching the game at the same time, seems to be a pretty relaxed atmosphere to watch a game that is happening while you do something else.
Carps eventually start losing, by a lot, we look into statistics, and they are an ok team this season, but they still have a few hundred games ahead, repeating the same combination of adversaries up to 30 times. I don't know much about baseball, but it seems too much in too little time.
Eventually when the game approaches the final few rounds, we decide to bail and get the next shinkansen, as we ride away from Hiroshima we still see the stadium, with the score showing to the outside people on the shinkansen, we're still losing.
We arrive back to our hotel area, I decide to stop by a bar, and have a small drink, people are surprised to see us in Carps jerseys, so we take them off, as apparently Osaka's team is the mightiest of them all, so as usual we don't want to cause much trouble to them.
After a drink, and as much interaction with the locals as I always expect from japanese people, but M desires more, we head home.