Our Japanese Adventure

Konichiwa! We are back from our trip to Hiroshima, Japan, and it was AMAZING! At the same time sobering and beautiful, Hiroshima was an experience I don't think either one of us will ever forget. I'll post a few pics here on the blog, but to be completely honest, I am way too lazy to put them all up. So the rest of them are on our share site, which you can find here. (You can also find a whole bunch of pictures of things I refused to eat!)

The first thing we did was hop a ferry to Miyajima Island. The island has long been thought to be a spiritual place and, because of this, the Itsukashima Shrine was built here. This was our first view of the O-torii Gate from the ferry. It is normally surrounded by water but, of course, we went during low tide.

This is us at the shrine looking back towards the gate. The shrine was actually designated a UNESCO World Heritage site back in 1996. It was a very cool place. . . but I think I'll stick with my Jesus ;)

This is a view of the actual shrine. You are not allowed to take pictures in the area where they worship and pray, but here's the building. The shrine is actually several smaller rooms connected by a series of corridors.

Posing on the island, looking back towards mainland Japan

Then it was back to Hiroshima City to visit the Peace Memorial Park. This is known as the "A-Bomb Dome." It was one of a hand-full of buildings to survive the blast, and it's the only structure the city of Hiroshima left standing after the renovation of the city (anything left standing--including trees--were bulldozed). It now stands in the park as a memorial and reminder of the bombing.

The museum housed a collection of artifacts from the bombing, including this watch that stopped at exactly 8:15 AM: the time the bomb detonated

This display shows you the hypocenter of the blast, along with what Hiroshima looked like afterwards. After walking around the city, seeing this was very sobering.

The marks the hypocenter of the bomb. "Little Boy," as the bomb was nicknamed, actually exploded 600 meters in the air, NOT on the ground as some people think.

To lighten the mood a bit, the next day we went to Hiroshima Castle. Like everything else, it was destroyed when the bomb hit, but it was pain-stakingly rebuilt to what it looked like originally. At one time, the castle was used as a training ground for samuris!

While we were at the castle, this Japanese lady begged us to take pictures with her kids. She wanted us to all jump up and try to catch the koi flags. Jonathan was embarrassed, but I got a kick out of it. After we finished, the little boy kept saying "Thank you berry much." So stinkin' cute.

Then she got all artistic and wanted to take pictures of the koi flags in my sunglasses. Jonathan got a kick out of it at least.

The watch-tower of Hiroshima Castle

View of Hiroshima from the watch-tower. What a beautiful city (especially coming from Korea!) I just kept repeating over and over: "It's so CLEAN here." It's sad that I've lived in Korea so long that THAT is what I notice first about a place!

The next few pictures are from Shukkeien Garden. Jonathan and I spent quite awhile here. It was so beautiful and so peaceful.

Alright, that's enough pictures for now. Remember to check out our share site for a TON more (and I was actually nice enough to include descriptions) :). Now its back to normal life in Korea for awhile. . .