2010 Exchange Program/Sightseeing Tour
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Tokyo and Hiroshima
July 17
On the evening of July 17th, 10 junior and high school students from Red Wing arrived at Tokyo's Narita Airport with their chaperone, Sister Cities Commission Chairman Thomas Brase, and were joined by Mr. Brase's son, Nathan. The group had had a hard time getting through Japanese Customs and Immigration (apparently, the names and contact info for their stay in Japan were unsatisfactory), but in the end they made it through, tired but happy to be in Japan at last.
The first night, after dragging their heavy suitcases all over Tokyo Station and the Hongō 3 Chō-me area, they were finally able to check into their first Japanese hotel, an establishment called Ryokan Tsutaya. To everyone's unending delight, the staff had turned on the air conditioning in their rooms, which were lovely and cool as soon as the kids walked in. It was already rather late, so we walked back in the direction of the train station to a locally famous ramen shop called Hongō Sesamitei. Having eaten a lot on the airplane, some of the kids were not very hungry, but it seemed like everyone enjoyed their Japanese-style ramen.
July 18
The next day was a blisteringly hot one, so while the kids were grateful for the air-conditioned comfort that a tour bus would provide us all morning, they worked up quite a sweat just walking to the bus stop. Naoki Mizumoto, the tour guide from Sadamisaki Tourism, handed out flat, paddle-shaped fans called "uchiwa," which were put to good use all day. The half-day tour we took with the Hato Bus Company brought us to Meiji Jingu, the Imperial Gardens, and Asakusa's temple and shopping area.
We spent a good couple of hours in Asakusa eating lunch (udon or soba noodles, gyoza, fried rice, etc.) and walking around the crowded shopping arcade. The kids were excited to discover "kakigōri," a treat made with shaved ice and flavored syrup.
Next we headed for the subway to go to the Japan Folk Art Museum near Komaba Tōdaimae Station. It took at least an hour to ride the train to the other side of Tokyo, so it was already mid-afternoon when we opened the heavy wooden door of the museum and ventured in. Unfortunately, there were no crafts we could try for ourselves, so after about 20 minutes of browsing the displays, everyone felt they had seen enough. We walked back to the train station and rode for another hour to Akihabara, to see our final destination of the day, the Tokyo Anime Center.
The Tokyo Anime Center proved to be much smaller than anyone had imagined, so that experience did not take long, either. With roughly half of the kids too tired to see anything else, and the other half anxious to go up the Tokyo Tower, Tom held an impromptu meeting to decide what to do. In the end, the tired kids went to the hotel with Jessamine and had fun choosing dinner and magazines in a Japanese convenience store (which is worlds more convenient than the American version), and the adventurous kids went to Tokyo Tower with Nao, Tom, and Nate.
July 19
It was a holiday, Umi no Hi (Marine Day), when we checked out of Ryokan Tsutaya and headed for the train station again. This time, though, the kids didn't have to lug quite so much stuff, because we arranged for their heaviest suitcases to be shipped to Ikata from the hotel for a fee of about $20. We were now headed for Hiroshima via the Nozomi Shinkansen, or bullet train. Hiroshima is on the same island as Tokyo–Honshu– but the train ride still takes about four hours. We left about 9 in the morning and arrived at 1 in the afternoon–just in time for lunch.
Lunch was okonomiyaki, often described as a cross between a pancake and a pizza. Noodles, batter, chopped vegetables, and seafood are sizzled up on hot plates before your very eyes, and while the typical way to eat okonomiyaki is with a metal spatula right from the griddle, the restaurant we went to gave us our okonomiyaki on plates with chopsticks. Everyone ate until they were full.
Later, we got on a city tram to get closer to the Atomic Bomb Dome and Peace Memorial Museum. The tram was crowded in the middle of the day, and we felt a bit awkward as we bundled on board with all of our luggage. Then, at our stop, we inadvertently left half the group on the tram! Quick thinking and action by Nao got the driver to wait until all those left on board had successfully extricated themselves.
The Peace Memorial Museum is a spacious block-like structure on some open land by the river. We stowed our suitcases and backpacks in coin lockers and received our admission tickets, free to roam the exhibits for 45 minutes. It was hardly enough time. There were scale models and photo panels of the city before the bombing, when it had been requisitioned as a garrison town, and after the bombing, when there was nothing left and horribly disfigured people wandered their ruined streets. There was a wall with copies of the letters sent by every subsequent mayor of Hiroshima to governments around the world who began or continued nuclear weapons programs. There were the burned remnants of school uniforms and shoes. Most moving, to me, were the drawings by survivors. They conveyed the horror, loss, and emptiness far more completely than the best models or simulations. When we gathered again afterward, it was clear that the kids had been deeply affected, and were glad they had come.
It was a subdued group that walked through the Peace Park, with its lawns, trees, and monuments. All around us were a mix of other foreign and Japanese visitors, some snapping pictures, others pausing silently over the names of those who were lost. Minutes before reaching the street and the nearest bus stop, the Atomic Bomb Dome came into view on the opposite side of the river. The building was used as a government building, but has been particularly memorable for its partially demolished dome. People were walking and jogging along the street beside it, and a man sat on a bench facing the building. Looking up to the blue sky through the leaves that shaded our sidewalk, it was hard to imagine that only decades earlier, no trees stood here.
Our bus to Miyajima took us on an hour-long, golden afternoon ride through Hiroshima and its outlying area, until we came at last to a harbor. There, a ferry took us the short distance to Miyajima (Literally, "Shrine Island," so called for its main attraction, Itsukushima Shrine. Officially and since before the shrine's establishment in 593, the island's name has been Itsukushima.)
The initial attraction for the kids, however, lay in the numerous wild deer that roam the island's streets and parks. The reason for so many deer (and monkeys, although it's not quite so common to see them around town) is that they were revered as divine messengers since ancient times. Killing them was taboo, and finding a dead deer in front of one's house was considered a judgment against the family, so the folk tale goes that waking up early (and shifting any dead deer to another house) became part of the island lifestyle.
At our hotel, Miyajima Hotel Makoto, we were treated to a fancy dinner in the style usually reserved for end-of-year student graduation trips.
July 20
Our last half-day of touring was a whirlwind! We got to experience a lot of Miyajima's "Old Japan" (or maybe "Tourist Japan") streets as we walked to Itsukushima Shrine, stopped to try on kimono and have our pictures taken for decorative shamoji, or rice paddles, and of course to exclaim over the many deer. The tide was out when we got to the shrine, so the kids walked down toward the large, bright red torii (gate). On the way they were distracted by some crabs and never made it under or through the gate. After a little souvenir shopping and fried-bread-ice-creams, we picked up our luggage and went back to the harbor to catch a ferry for Hiroshima and then Matsuyama, where Chairman Hirose, Mr. Sakamoto, and Mrs. Wakida of the Ikata International Exchange Association were there to meet us.
