Japan 2017: 15 September: Hiroshima and surrounds

Return to 14 September: Hiroshima and surrounds

We'll be spending most of the day traveling to Japan—about 16 hours from the time we first hit the airport. Probably won't have time to blog anything significant for a day or two. But if you're reading this long after it was written:

Today was intended to be a close-to-home day, finishing our exploration of this part of Hiroshima before leaving for a day trip to Onomichi and then heading north to Miyajima.

The Japanese breakfast we'd had the previous morning at Ikawa Ryokan (roasted salmon, fermented adzuki beans on rice, nori, pickled ginger and plum, and raw egg—which we didn't eat) was okay, but nothing special, so instead we chose to go further afield. We'd found earlier that with the exception of a few American chains, where we didn't want to eat, breakfast out doesn't seem to be a Japanese thing the way it is back home. But a little Googling turned up a 24-hour ramen place that was well-reviewed, so we decided to try that instead. (If your only experience with ramen is the half salt/half noodle/comes out of a package stuff that is the manna of graduate students everywhere: this is not your gradfather's ramen.)

Ichiran, the ramen place, is interesting in that its whole shtick is about privacy and savouring the ramen experience. So the staff is unobtrusive. At the door, you feed a machine coins, select the specific food you want (e.g., bowl of ramen, extra pork, soft-boiled egg, extra onions) from buttons on the face of the machine, which counts down your remaining credit, and then the machine spits out food tickets. Tickets in hand, you then enter the restaurant and pick a seat from a long row of barstool-type seats with vertical privacy dividers on the table between seats. (These fold inwards if you want to share space with the person beside you, as we did.) At your seat, there's a menu card that lets you specify details of your order, such as the firmness of the noodles, the richness of the broth, and so on. So I chose firm (al dente) rather than mushy noodles, more robust broth, more spices, and moderate to high heat (chili paste). There's a narrow slot between you and the wait staff, who roam a narrow passageway between the rows of seats; it's just high enough to pass food through, and you leave your meal tickets and specifications there. A few minutes later, a piping-hot bowl of noodle-stuffed soup arrives and the waiter pulls a privacy curtain across the slot so you can eat in peace.

The ramen was predictably salty, but more importantly, it was rich and savoury, with really chewy noodles and significant heat from the chilli. It was delicious, warm, filling, and a really interesting way to eat. The illusion of privacy is just that, since as soon as I left the table to go blow my nose in the washroom*, someone opened the curtain and began to take away my dishes. But then they saw my camera and backpack, and were very confused. Shoshanna explained, and all was well. For desert, we had a kind of pudding made from almonds and green tea. Small but very tasty.

* Public nose-blowing is frowned upon in Japan, so you're best off withdrawing somewhere private, like the washroom, if you want to blow your nose.

Hiroshima Peace Park's museum is currently undergoing renovations, so only one of the two buildings was open. We finished our exploration of the Peace Park by touring the open wing. I won't go into details, as they're pretty much clear from the previous day's narration. The story remains horrific, particularly when I saw the letter from 10 or so of the Manhattan Project scientists urging the military not to drop the bomb without enough warning for civilians to evacuate. Of the signatories, I recognized the names of Leo Szilard and Thomas Seaborg—serious brains who recognized that whatever the military justifications for the bombing (and Hiroshima was a fairly significant military city), the only good reason for specifically targeting the centre of the urban area was to see what the bomb would do to a civilian population. Given the number of children slain, and how horrifically they died, I find myself hoping that there's a special place in Hell for people who believed that the bombing was a good idea and should proceed.

After the museum, we sat for a while by the peaceful riverside, watched carefully by a bold pigeon who was hoping for a handout. I threw him some oat grains from our trail mix, and he pecked up a few, but clearly was accustomed to better fare. Eventually he got bored with us and moved off. He was followed by an equally bold sparrow (black-throated, so maybe the Japanese equivalent of a song sparrow?), who was equally unimpressed.

Next, we hiked up to the shopping district both to decompress and in search of gift-wrapping services. Gift-giving in Japan is a sophisticated thing, and we both recognized that our sloppy efforts would not inspire admiration. Since we want to thank our volunteer guide in Nara and the woman whose home we'll be staying at with gifts (Canadian maple syrup), we'd like the presents to be presentable. Some department stores have special wrapping desks where an expert will wrap a gift for you in a way appropriate to the occasion (e.g., to say thanks when someone saves your life vs. the janitor's annual Christmas present). We started out with SOGO, one of the bigger stores. Before doing the wrapping, we roamed the department store's underground levels: the first level down is the supermarket, where you buy various foods that you'll prepare at home, and the second level is like the food court at a mall. There's a stunning variety of prepared foods ready for eating, each looking more delicious than the last, and we couldn't resist. Shoshanna went for sticky rice wrapped in mustard greens, whereas I chose a savoury pastry with a cheesy surface layer and walnuts. Apparently, you can get quite a decent meal by asking for samples, but we restricted ourselves to the few samples that were clearly on offer. Both the paid foods were yummy. Should you find yourself in a big Japanese city on a rainy day when you don't want to be outdoors or museum hopping, you could do a whole lot worse for entertainment than spending several hours in the food area of a big department store.

"Gift wrapping" was outside my vocabulary, but Google Translate suggested "gifutu rappu", clearly a loan phrase from English. The first desk we tried, which looked like an information desk, turned out to be something more like the place where you apply for a store credit card, but they nonetheless tried gamely to figure out what we wanted. (Google wasn't as clear as it perhaps could have been.) Nonetheless, they discussed the concept before helpfully taking us to the Information counter. There, we tried again, with no more luck; neither of the staffers was familiar with any such department. They called a manager who spoke better English, and she was able to confirm that they had no such department.

Undaunted, we returned to a bookstore I remembered from the previous day, and though they didn't have a wrapping department, they did have wrapping paper and gift bags. So we picked up some gift bags, and we'll do the wrapping ourselves. it won't be elegant, but as Westerners, we'll probably at least get points for trying.

Tired, we returned home for a nap. Afterwards, rather than trying to go somewhere special, we went to a local dinner joint only a couple blocks from the ryokan. Their specialty was big bowls of rice topped with mounds of meat and veggies. I chose beef; Shoshanna went for pork with a single shrimp hood ornament. Both were tasty and very filling, but nothing to write home about. (Except that I just did, so there you go.)

On the way home, we passed by a small bakery (panya) that was just closing down for the evening. When they saw us peering through the door, they offered to let us in, but we told them no, we were just looking, but would probably return the following day for breakfast.

And that's all for today. Very sleepy from the ongoing emotional roller coaster of the Peace Park, not to mention spending most of the day walking around and being bombarded by images.

Continue to 16 September: Hiroshima to Miyajima