My Life in the Land of the Morning Calm: Japan

This is a bit delayed, but over the lunar New Year I spent nine days in Japan. I went to Tokyo, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Kyoto, Arashiyama, Nara, and Mount Fuji. This first entry is all about Tokyo and Hiroshima. I flew in on a Saturday and met my friend Chris in Tokyo. We went out in Roppongi, which is supposed to be the happenin' nightlife area, but we were shocked by how few people there were. Tokyo is supposed to be this huge, thriving city, but I was frankly astonished by how empty the metro and streets were. I think Seoul is far more crowded. If you go to the Seoul version of Roppongi, you can barely exit the metro because it's so jammed with people.

Anyway, let me start over. First of all, Japan is great. It's so cool, modern, visually appealing, the people are really friendly and kind, transportation is a dream, and there's an insane amount of tourism that is also extremely accessible and easy. The downside is that everything is so expensive! Well, to me it's expensive. First of all because I'm cheap, and second because I'm coming from Korea, where things are very inexpensive. If you're used to city living, I doubt you'd find Tokyo/Japan to be excessively expensive, but I definitely did. My family (well, my sister... love you, Anna!) was completely horrified when I emailed them saying I ate a plate of free noodles that had been left in the hostel. They were labeled free! That meant they were available for public consumption, and I was too cheap to pass up a free meal like that. My "meals" in Japan were mostly supermarket croissants and free hostel coffee for breakfast and lunch, then I'd buy myself an actual Japanese dinner. I had previously bought a Japan Railways Pass, which is only available to foreigners who buy said pass outside Korea. Mine was 7 days unlimited rides on any JR lines, including the bullet trains.

I'll be honest - I was not crazy about Tokyo. I'm just not much of a city tourism kind of person. Chris and I visited the Hima Rikyu gardens, which was nice. Gardens in Japan are very cool. We also went on a walking tour of an older part of Tokyo, the name of which escapes me now. We also visited a war museum/shrine, which we didn't actually go into on account of money. We also visited the Tsujiki Fish Market (I think I spelled that correctly). Check out the pictures below for more descriptions.

I left Tokyo and split up with Chris (who had to go back to Korea) on Tuesday for Hiroshima by bullet train. Bullet trains are awesome! I'll be honest though, I really thought it would go faster. I had to change trains at Shin-Osaka, and overall travel time was about five hours to Hiroshima. So, Hiroshima was easily my favorite part of my whole trip to Japan. Modern-day Hiroshima is just so cool in itself, then you add in the history of the city and it's just incredible. The night I got there I didn't do very much as it was late and I was tired, so I got a map from the hostel and walked over to a nearby restaurant that the hostel lady recommended to me. Some kind of Hiroshima specialty, a picture of which I have posted below. It was delicious. It probably helped that I was starving (re: supermarket bread for breakfast and lunch), but either way I loved it.

The next day I went to the Peace Park, which was really amazing. I spent the first half of my day walking around it. There are lots of statues and monuments as well as a memorial and a museum. It was also very empty, which was nice. A very cool part of the museum showcased these letters that the past and present mayors of Hiroshima had written. Basically, since Hiroshima was rebuilt, the mayor of Hiroshima personally writes a letter to the representative of any country performing nuclear testing of any kind. They were very powerful letters that essentially said, Dear so-and-so (i.e. US presidents, French prime ministers, etc), I'm the current mayor of Hiroshima. Our city has personally felt the effects of nuclear bombs and as such we are devoted to the eradication of all nuclear weapons. Despite many letters that we have sent to your government over the years, I am dismayed to hear that you recently performed a nuclear test despite agreeing to attempt to downsize nuclear weapons stockpiles. I look forward to the day I no longer have to write these letters.

The second half of the day I went out to the nearby island of Miyajima, which was fantastic. Check out the pictures below because I'll write captions.

Hiroshima tram. Adorable.

Fountain at the Peace Park

A-bomb dome. This was at ground zero where the bomb was dropped, but it didn't collapse, so the city of Hiroshima decided to preserve it as a memorial. Usually it doesn't have all that scaffolding, but they were conducting tests of some kind on it.

Statue at the Peace Park

Paper cranes

Children's Peace Memorial statue. Do you know the story "Sadako and the 1,000 Cranes?" Maybe that's not the exact name. I read it in elementary school but I thought it was fictional... definitely not. Sadako was a baby when the bomb was dropped, and at age 11 she developed cancer from radiation poisoning. The crane is a symbol of long life, and she thought if she could fold 1,000 paper cranes she could cure herself. She died before finishing them. The statue has a girl at the top holding a crane.

Bell of Peace

Inside the museum

Possibly one of the saddest things in the museum. Read the picture below for a description.

The two Japanese words I learned to read while there: entrance and exit.

The ferry to Miyajima

The shrine gates at Miyajima. During high tide you can't walk out there and they appear like they're floating.

Bullet train

Tokyo metro map. This is my friend Chris. We both disliked the Tokyo Metro for being too expensive and kind of dingy. I know I said earlier that the transportation is great in Japan, and it is, but the Seoul metro is just much newer and cheaper.

We went to a Japanese arcade and took anime-style pictures, then got to decorate them.

A Japanese arcade game

Shibuya

The Shibuya crossing - you've probably heard of it, there's like a thousand people that cross at one time or something ridiculous like that.

Japan really is the future. We didn't have a waiter - instead, we had a touch screen menu and a waiter would appear to give us our food.

Warning comics at the Tsujiki Fish Market

Hama Rikyu Gardens. This is a 300 year old pine tree.

Japanese lunch! It was delicious.

Tokyo Government Offices. It was free to go up to the top to view the city. You know how I feel about free stuff in Japan... essential.

Helpful bathroom sign in the Tokyo Government Offices.

Then it snowed. A lot.

Hiroshima pancake!

Japanese man making the Hiroshima pancakes. When I got back to the hostel, the woman asked me if I enjoyed the restaurant. I told her I had to learn Japanese so I could marry the pancake man and we could live happily ever after in Hiroshima eating pancakes all the time. She thought that was hilarious.