Hiroshima Family Visitors

The second half of our time in Hiroshima began with a final round of visitors from Australia. This time, my parents flew in to actually stay with us for a whole week. They had wanted to come earlier in our stay, but their own travel plans gave them very few options. 

The first few days they were here were very rainy. Lots of night time downpours and then on and off during the day. We managed to get home from Hiroshima station with all the luggage safely, but the next day was not as smooth. A huge storm in the night, which woke us up at 2am when lightning cracked across the sky and the sound echoed off all the mountains around us put the whole region on landslide alert. There wasn't any immediate risk, but the update notifications made sleep pretty tricky. 

On top of that, sometime in the morning a tree came down on the main train line and Steve's way into work was actually out for the entire day. I had been planning on taking my parents and the girls out to a transport museum, for the day, so it wasn't a huge problem for Steve to work from home. What was a factor though, was that since the main train was out, everyone who usually caught that had switched to the smaller line, so the wait time was enormous. 

We did join the line for a while before aborting and going the opposite direction to a department store shopping area. Definitely not my activity of choice, but in an effort to be out of the house and away from the train, the options were slim. 

We walked through an area apparently famous for kendama (a Japanese traditional wooden cup and ball game). Kendama mascots everywhere, and the manhole covers also reflecting the kendama icon. At the shops the girls got new school shoes since they had both grown out of the ones we bought with us from Australia. I don't know if any of Sophie's Australian clothes will fit when we return. My mum got various things from shops for people, but mostly we just bummed around killing time though. 

The next day we again tried to get to the transport museum only to find (after an hour of train travel) that it was closed! I don't think I will ever understand the way Japanese businesses decide to randomly close midweek. We again pivoted to a shopping alternative, since we'd already come north of Hiroshima, and I took my parents to a second hand store called Book Off, where my dad found a good quality train for his set up at home. At least the train trip out was fun, seeing the mountains and rivers of Hiroshima from a different view. 

That afternoon we came back home via Hiroshima City because my Uncle from Sydney had decided last min to fly in and join us for the week! He must have loved his visit to Tokyo in June so much that he had to come back again before we left. 

The next day, Steve took some time off work and all of us met on the train and took the ferry over to Miyajima for the day. Again, the weather was cloudy and threatening rain, so not the best. The heat and humidity were also quite high. This was my first visit to Miyajima though, and I really enjoyed it. 

It turns out my Pa-pou (grandfather) had been stationed here after World War 2 for 18months, on guard duty and helping with the clean up. My mum has pictures of him (her dad) at these very statues in uniform. 

The island has lots of little shops and things to see down by the shore. I wish the weather had been better, because I was keen to go on the ropeway up to Mt Mizen and then walk back down through the forest, but it really wasn't worth it with all the clouds and the walk in the heat wouldn't have been fun. Instead we wandered around dodging the occasional deer and enjoying the food. Steve had some beer from Miyajima Brewery and the rest of us had momiji (maple shaped and flavoured cakes) with red bean, ice cream and strawberries. 

The next day was Saturday, and we met in town to visit the Peace Park, Hiroshima Castle (rebuilt after WW2) and generally wander. Thinking about what is happening in the world and seeing the destruction of this building (known as the Atomic Dome) preserved after the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, was pretty confronting. Are we as people destined to just repeat the cycle of war again and again? Will we always be sweeping away the rubble after the destruction to rebuild? 

There are no real answers, and I hope the answer is that we will learn from our past. In the grounds of Hiroshima Castle, there is a eucalyptus tree that survived the bomb and is still growing, 80 years on. So I guess there is life to come. 

My parents and I have all been to the museum in the Peace Park before, and were not keen to relive the experience. I also didn't want to take the girls in, since I remembered finding it a bit scaring when I went as a 17 year old in 2003. Steve and Yianni went in and the rest of us went home via a hobby shop so Dad could get some specific train tracks for his set. 

We finally managed to get to the transport museum the next day, which was fun. The kids areas were probably aimed at some slightly younger kids than ours, but still enjoyable. Our last day together had the best weather yet, and we took a train south, just over the boarder to Yamaguchi Prefecture to visit the Kintaikyo Bridge at Iwakuni. This was a recommendation from someone Steve worked with and it was so cool. 

The bridge was fascinating to walk over, such unique construction and shape! On the other side, we took a cable car up the mountain and visited the small castle at the top with some lovely views. 

It was a smaller castle, but so cool on top of the mountain. The inside had been turned into a museum when it was rebuilt. This one was not destroyed in a war, but by order of the Shougan, who decided each prefecture only needed one castle. Seems ridiculous that a perfectly good castle would have been torn down like that. 

At the bottom was a snake museum with the White Snakes of Iwakuni on display. These are a mutation of the Japanese Rat Snake that are all white and non venomous. The museum was small but the snakes were cool. We beat the heat with some ice cream (after some agonising over the choice of flavour from the 50 options), and then had udon for lunch at a local restaurant. 

We were back at the station in time to beat a sudden downpour and say goodbye. It had been a short visit but we had done so much the time just flew by! 

Now there is only five days left of Hiroshima, and just over a week of Japan all up. The girls updated me on how many days to go every morning. Their excitement at going home was catching and I've started to feel more positive for home, rather than sad for leaving Japan. 

I will say though, that when I think about going back to work, it's a struggle. Starting again in Term 4 really gives the feeling of being behind the eight ball like no other. There will be so much to do, and so little time to do it. Will I even remember the student's names? Here's hoping, but that's a problem for future Paula.