Author: Ella

Best thing we saw yesterday, sandwiched among abandoned houses. The Can Art Shop.

Visiting Naoshima that is. An island dedicated to art. Gotta be good, right? After checking into Sparky’s House, we set out to walk a pleasant 25 minutes from Sparky’s to the village of Honmura where several abandoned homes have been repurposed as contemporary art spaces.  Grubb will describe the installations  in more descriptive prose but let…

10 yen to the first person to guess the full meaning of the sign without translating the Japanese words.

Yesterday we boarded an early morning Shinkansen bound for Okayama, then transferred to a local train to Chaymachi, another local train to Uno port, and a ferry crossing to Naoshima. All told, about 5 hours from Hiroshima apartment to our room at Sparkys House. Hiroshima Station is another huge megaplex. Below is just one small…

The toilet in our Hiroshima apartment has a built in water spout. You do your business, flush and water from the spout automatically flows. You can rinse your hands right there.

Shika deer, considered messengers of the gods, roam unafraid among humans on Miyajima. They eat anything so beware of whatever you are holding in your hands.  I did a separate post with deer pics. We saw them in the streets and alleyways and our trek up the mountain. A forested mountain lush with deer food. There…

In guidebooks and tourist brochures, this haven of natural beauty is labeled Miyajima. On maps, it’s more commonly named Itsukushima which means “island dedicated to the gods”.  Whichever name you settle on, this island was considered a god and 800 years ago, the large Itsukushima shrine was erected on wooden poles over the water. It…

We took a ferry from Hiroshima to the island of Miyajima (also called Itsukushima) known for its temples and shrines and a large torii gate that appears to float just off shore. The island is also known for its oysters.

On the island of Miyajima, the deer are part of the crowd.

For today, I had booked a walking tour / cooking class with Kozo, a native of Hiroshima. He’d spent some time in the U.S. so his English was fluent. Google translate was not necessary. We were the only two people on the tour. We started at the Peace Memorial, moved on to Hiroshima castle and…

Imagine being in a land of frequent earthquakes, cyclones, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and hearing air raid sirens.  The first time I heard them in Osaka, might felt a few heart palpitations. Then we heard them in Kagoshima and thought maybe Mt Sakurajima was going to finally belch lava instead of grey clouds of gas. Now in…

Not like back home. 7/11s in Japan offer all kinds of cheap, prepared food of pretty good quality. Originally owned by the same company as the US brand, 7/11 here is now fully Japanese owned.

Meant to post these earlier. We have left the island of Kyushu and are now back on the “mainland”.

We spent the afternoon wandering the Peace Memorial Park and Museum in Hiroshima.  Full of somber people. The place had that feel.  The unimaginable had happened here. I was asked to sign a petition against nuclear weapons. Perfect place to gather signatures. Though who they are petitioning is unclear. The museum was claustrophobically crowded and dimly lit…