Kyoto (After the Cruise)

After our cruise ended, we traveled to Kyoto for a few additional days before heading home.

You know how much I like trains. I really, really like Japan's trains. All of them, including the various city transit options, but most especially the high speed bullet trains called the Shinkansen. We took one to Kyoto from Yokohama, where our cruise concluded. We'll take one back to Tokyo for our flight home. This is the train arriving at Yokohama to pick us up.

Margaret had found an inexpensive place for us to stay while in Kyoto via AirBnB. It is a bit spartan but will serve our needs.

We often stop at coffee shops when wandering around city neighborhoods. One had this charming zen or rock garden.

Colonel Sandars and many other well-known eateries can be found in Japan.

When we were near Kyoto University, I saw this poster. We had gone up that way to find Philosopher's Walk, which is a very pretty, tree-lined path that a KU philosopher professor is said to have used daily. I didn't get any decent pictures of it, I'm sorry to say. It must have been gorgeous when the cherry trees were blooming in this part of Japan in late March.

In some neighborhoods, there are numerous little shops--mostly eateries and souvenir shops. I thought this gentleman fascinating.

While in Japan, Murray and I may have had a few of these.

I forgot to rotate this shot, so turn your head sideways, please. Another fun bento box type of lunch that I enjoyed.

Stores have lots of colorful displays of products and food available. I liked this one.

A rainstorm passed by while we had dinner, and the view to the north of the setting sun was really pretty.

Aomori

Aomori is the northernmost capital city on Honshu, Japan's main island. The port derives much of its beauty from the nearby Hakkoda Mountains and the area's apple orchards and cherry blossoms.

Our tour took us south to the city of Hirosaki, which is one of the most dramatic places to see the cherry blossoms at this time of year. We began with a brief tour of the Hirosaki Neputa-no-Yakata Museum. Each August, the people of Hirosaki have a festival during which 60 or more large lanterns are paraded down the street. We saw a few.

Musicians also played traditional Japanese music for us on a three-stringed instrument.

 Because the cherry blossoms only last for a few days, there are typically huge crowds that gather in Hirosaki to see them. I had seen the cherry blossoms in Washington, DC around the tidal basin, mall, and various of our monuments there. My understanding is that those trees were a gift from the people of Japan many years ago. The crowds reminded me of a football weekend near the University of Iowa campus.

The ancient Hirosaki Castle is surrounded by a beautiful park filled with cherry trees and other flowering plants.

We were standing here in front of Japan's oldest Somei Yoshino cherry tree (the light pink species)--one that dates back to 1882.

All of our Japanese tour guides have been delightful. Most speak English quite well. We liked the extra stories or information they shared with us during our drives to/from attractions.

This is the castle, of course, and you will note a different species of cherry trees here.

I feel like this is the best scenic shot I got. The mountain in the background has a similarity to Mt. Fuji, though it is not that mountain. This region of Japan gets more snow than almost anywhere else on earth each winter, and lots of it still adorned the mountains we saw.

Thought not the same musicians we saw earlier, who did not permit us to make videos, these two gentlemen were playing in the park.

I like my new iPhone X's portrait mode for photos. Here is an example of why I think that.

After I took this picture, I told M&M that they looked like the Blues Brothers.

Here is what all the fuss is about. An absolutely gorgeous place to visit--surely one of the top few highlights of our trip to Japan so far.

Busan, South Korea

First of all, allow me to introduce our dining mates. Margaret and Murray from Australia, of course, you may already recognize. Sandy and Jim, the third couple at our table, are from Toronto, Canada. I quickly connected with them, as Jim has a very similar background to mine in the late 1960s and early 1970s with regard to large IBM systems support. On top of that, Sandy was then his IBM systems engineer. We shared lots of stories about that time period but have gone on to discuss much more.

Busan is South Korea's second largest city--3.6 million people--and is the world's fifth busiest seaport for cargo tonnage. The city was definitely bustling when we were there. Korea felt very, very different to us from Japan. Koreans didn't seem quite as polite. There was much more aggressiveness by drivers on the streets, all of whom (including even our shuttle bus drivers) seemed to be constantly playing dodgeball with each other--lots of horn honking and darting in front of each other. Motorized scooters freely roamed walkways and were similarly aggressive, even with the pedestrians. There was little acknowledgement of each other. Eye contact was minimal, and there were few shared smiles. Everything just seemed edgier. After Japan, this all seemed more noticeable. Of course, this is only an initial impression based on only a few hours of strolling the city.

We did not take an official tour this day. Instead, we figured out, after some work, how to navigate the subway system and went to an area with a lively outdoor market, including a fascinating fish market.

There were all kinds of fascinating foods available. These seemed to be some type of egg dish.

Lots of foods are offered on skewers so that you can eat them while walking about.

Potatoes were spiral cut and deep fried on skewers.

The fish market was fun. Lots of fresh cuts and many live offerings that could be cleaned and prepared for you on the spot (not a good idea for cruise ship guests, however). Many of the things we saw were completely unknown to us. How about these bundles of tentacles, for example?

Tanks full of fresh, cold water had everything from crabs of different kinds to eels to fish.

The vendors who offered cleaning were efficient, fast, and clever in their filleting or other cutting.

These were various kinds of seaweed.

And, I'm sure everyone would like to take a few of these home.

Nagasaki

At 11:02am on August 9, 1945, an atomic bomb destroyed most of Nagasaki. Nearly 150,000 lives, out of a population of 240,000, were lost. Japan had been warned in July of an attack but had ignored it. When Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, Japan still did not yield, so the Nagasaki bombing took place. Kokura had been the primary target, but cloud conditions diverted the raid to Nagasaki instead. It is argued that the total number of lives lost would have been greater if the allies had been forced to invade Japan. Yet it is difficult to accept the loss of life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, most of that being civilian life, including many young persons. Even a prisoner-of-war camp was destroyed, including the lives of Chinese, Korean, US, and other soldiers.

A Peace Park was created in 1955, and an Atomic Bomb Museum opened in 1996 as part of a 50th anniversary of the bombing. The tour we took from the Nagasaki port included both. We started at the museum.

Numerous statues and works of art are near the museum. This one honors a teacher and students, with the students demonstrating various ways of calling for peace.

This grim piece emphasizes the horror of the event.

A grove of cherry trees once stood near the museum, and this piece marks that location and serves as a kind of guidepost at the entrance to an area referred to as the hypocenter of the blast.

A black obelisk sits below the spot 500 meters above the ground where the bomb detonated. Standing near that spot was unreal.

Nearby, a portion of a church that had been 500 meters northeast of the hypocenter could be seen. It was relocated to the area as a kind of memorial or exhibit.

Inside the museum were numerous photographs, videos, and evidence of the damage caused. There was also a detailed presentation of the science, politics, events, and individuals that led to the creation of the device. A model of the bomb, which weighed over 4.5 tons, was shown. Called Fat Man, it developed over 21 kilotons of force from its 14 pound plutonium core--only 14 pounds! Don't mean to be obsessed about the bomb technology, but I can't help but be in awe of forces we can barely comprehend. And compared to the destructive power that exists today, this bomb is nothing.

The museum also includes an extensive section devoted to the madness of nuclear proliferation and attempts to educate and argue for peace and elimination of such weapons.

There were lots of Japanese school groups touring the same day we were there. When we reached the Peace Garden, a short drive from the museum, we watched them pose for group photographs. They were delightful, both for their youthfulness and their obvious happiness at being together.

The background for their photographs was the same as this one of Kathie and me. This is the famous "Statue of Peace", a 30-foot high memorial created with donations from all over the world. The right arm points to the sky from which the bomb came, the left hand is extended to symbolize eternal peace, the eyes are closed in prayer, and the right leg is folded to signify meditation, and the left leg is poised to rise to offer rescue. Thus, it is meant to represent both western and eastern art, philosophy, and religion. Our smiles are nice, but in retrospect, it feels a bit wrong for us to have exhibited that emotion in the presence of such a setting and so many memories.

The grounds of the Peace Park contain numerous memorials from countries around the world. This one, from Australia, honors the events in Japan while at the same time remembering unfortunate nuclear testing events in Australia that the United Kingdom once conducted in their outback. We also saw a monument from the city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, which is a city sister to Nagasaki.

The immediate survivors of the blast suffered for a very long time, including severe thirst, due both to the effects on themselves and to destruction of water sources and supplies. Accordingly, a fountain in the park remembers these unfortunates.

I feel privileged to have been able to visit this city and these places and to have had the chance to learn more. It was with more than a little awe that I left Nagasaki behind.