The Spirit of Hiroshima

It is silence now…my thoughts are not fighting, but wait…

We wanted to visit Hiroshima, because we couldn’t in 2011.  And here we are, walking over the bridge and looking at the dome. It seems small, considering its significance. The ruins of the Product Exhibition Hall on a manicured lawn, surrounded by black iron fence and people taking pictures — somber modern art.

Yakushima

What will this bright and beautiful day bring us? And the ones that come after this one?

A volcano.

And another one.

And there…another.

Shirakawago

“Ohayō gozaimasu! Good morning! We know you have two places in your tour bus, but we are three, and if someone from your group doesn’t come, could you take us?” We want to go to the historic village of Shirakawa-go and this company has the best schedule for our time frame. Alas, everyone comes, so seconds before departure time, the guide (and the driver!) come to us, apologize because they couldn’t take us, bow and leave. Well, we’ve tried!

From tunnel to tunnel to the next mountain.

Tateyama Kurope Alpine Route

I don’t know if it’s because Mihai is eager to start the day, or Ioan and I are really tired … Mihai makes our breakfast, makes the beds, gets all of us out the door. While we wait for the taxi to take us to Ogizawa, a baboon walks nonchalantly on the street. Soon enough we find ourselves in a car with lace on seats. Novelty worn, we swivel our heads to take in the view.

Fuji and Matsumoto

How do we cross the language barrier?

We take the train to Mishima, a city two hours and forty five minutes away from Tokyo and close to the Japanese icon: Mount Fuji. We had a reservation for a car (much cheaper and available, contrasting with anything in Tokyo). We enter the office, and the lady, understanding from our looks and presence what we are looking for, made signs to follow her. The renting part is on the other side of the train station, so she drives us, for five minutes in the 6 seats minivan. We will have to return the car to her office.

Tokyo

Today we start our morning early, but we stay in. I take advantage of Ioan’s school and wash more laundry, and do small things.

When we finally emerge from our apartment, we take the subway to Ueno Park. Next to a bus station there is a big map of the park. Though we have an ipad and internet and we could orient ourselves from that, we choose to look at that map. And while we are looking at it, I notice two men, quietly washing its frame, small movements, no drips. If we wouldn’t have stopped to look at the map, I wouldn’t have known that they were there, working. But as we are here, I feel like I am not letting them work. It amazes me, because in my mind I compare it with a similar one in Romania or in USA (not that I have seen or heard of washing the frame of a street map). In Romania, IF someone would do this job, it would be  visible from a distance, an obvious fuss, “Look at me, I’m working”. In USA no one would bother, that’s why we have rain, but, still, if they would have to do it, they would use a power washer. 

First stop: National Museum of Western Art. We know that the building is on the waiting list of World Heritage Sites. It was build by Le Corbusier in 1951 to house the Matsukata collections.

Nikko

Wake up!

Cameras, spare batteries, some food, water, tickets…let’s go! Today we are going to visit Nikko and we want to beat the crowds. That’s why we leave so early and in such a hurry.

We admire the television tower against the dawn, that’s the only view that we are going to have of it. We enter the metro system and we have to find our way to the train station. Ioan is not feeling very well, sleeping on the floor will do that to someone who is not used to it. Then we wait in line to board the train. Ooops, not ours, better get out of the way. Two more minutes and our shinkansen stops exactly to the sign. We have less then an hour to eat. In Utsunomiya we change the trains and 40 minutes later we arrive in Nikko.

Hiraizumi

Another early morning for us, we wake up before the 5 am alarm. Still on jet-lag. We could waste time in the room, our train is later in the day, or we could go to the market and enjoy the show. Quietly we gather our belongings and tip-toe out of the hotel.

No, Ioan does not have a flower in his hair! It is a chrysanthemum from a vase that sits on the table hidden almost completly by him, but you can see it in the mirror. We are surrounded by those shapeless blue or red one size fits all slippery slippers (you can fall to your death if you're trying to climb those stairs wearing them) and if there is a large group, there are more in the bin. You can see how many people are in the hotel by counting the pairs of shoes in the cubby.

The sun is up, but the streets are deserted, with the exception of the dog-owners. Because everyone else is at the market buying or eating sea food. We look out-of-place, with our backpacks, still we’re oggling at the variety and the abundance, not in just one place, but repeated along the street.

Good bye Car, Hello Train

Time to pack and go! The best method to be sure I’m not forgetting anything is to clean. And being an ambassador of Romania and USA, I leave everything almost as I found them. The result is I have all my possessions and Mihai gets a good review on airbnb.