3 Cities in 1 Day...

JAPAN DAY 4: Today was emotionally draining but incredibly eye opening.  We woke up early in Kyoto and had a wonderful breakfast at a local bakery before touring more of the Gion district and a beautiful temple.  We rushed over to the famous Imperial Palace for our tour at 10am but missed it by just 2 minutes because our taxi driver dropped us off on the wrong side.  They wouldn’t allow us to join the tour late and the next showing wasn’t until 2pm so we decided to make our way to Hiroshima earlier than we expected.  Again, the countryside was beautiful, the train was immaculate, and no one spoke.  All of the public transportation in Japan was very orderly, quite, and clean.  We tried hard not to make too much of a ruckus. Once in Hiroshima we got a recommendation from the concierge at a nearby hotel of where to eat for lunch.  She sent us to this local spot still in the train station to have a dish famous to Hiroshima.  The Okinakura was a thin crepe-like base dish with noodles, chopped lettuce, shrimp, and pork grilled on top then covered with an egg.  We loaded the delicious teriyaki-like sauce on top and had the best meal of our trip yet.  The little old ladies crammed next to us at this popular restaurant had no problem finishing their full serving, but we struggled and still left some on the plate when finished.  Satisfied and full to the brim, we hopped on the trolley and headed for the Atomic-Bomb Dome.  As we walked around Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima reading the signs and contemplating the meaning of the memorials it was hard not to feel embarrassed and shameful for the 200,000+ deaths that our country caused on the very same land where we stood.  We toured the Hiroshima Memorial Museum for several hours with the aid of an audio tour.  The gruesome pictures of children dying as their skin melted off their bodies was horrifying.  We even saw a brick wall with steps leading up to it where the shadow of someone who had melted on the steps still remains over 50 years later.   There were countless remains of burnt school uniforms of children that had melted with the heat of the bomb.  At the Atomic-Bomb Dome that remains there is a sign that states the bomb exploded 600 meters directly above that point.  As I looked up into the air and then back at the destroyed building it was hard not to consider the horribly sad human component in wars around the world.  The only reason this building still remains is because it was directly below the explosion, everything else in the surrounding 4 kilometers was completely flattened by the explosion.  The city as a hole was annihilated by the simple press of a trigger.  To make the scene even more real, there were several tour guides walking around with tags stating “In Uttero Survivor” meaning that they survived in their mother’s womb through the event.   Even though I couldn’t help but feel guilty for our actions, nowhere in the park or museum was there any hostile mention of America.  Instead, the event was portrayed in a matter-of-fact way that made it seem destined to happen.  Now, the city aims to promote peace and put an end to the existence of nuclear weapons worldwide.   After a grueling experience, we headed back toward the train station and made our way to Osaka.  We had a fantastic fusion meal before hitting the town that night.  I had a meatloaf burger on a bed of mashed potatoes and rice drizzled with Thousand Island dressing and topped with avocado and tomato with a dusting of parmesan.  It was so flavorful!!  That night we wondered the streets of the popular Dotombori-Dori district.  We heard that Osaka was supposed to have the best nightlife in Japan, but were fairly underwhelmed by the crowed seeing that it was a Friday night after a national holiday.  Nevertheless, we managed to find our way into several bars.  The first was an overpriced Americanized bar with all Western-looking bartenders.  The second we were referred to by some very intoxicated locals on the street.  It ended up being a karaoke bar no larger than my bedroom at home where our group easily doubled the number of customers for the night and probably exceeded maximum capacity.  The owner loved us and bought two rounds of drinks on the house for our party.  He took pictures with us all night long as the drunk Japanese men sang American songs we didn’t recognize in the background. Finally, we ended the night at an empty night club where we were the only people dancing with only 5 other people total in the large room.  Not to worry, we still made our own fun.  We made our way back to our hotel room a bit earlier that night, around 4am, so that we could head to Kobe after seeing more of Osaka in the morning.