Tour end

Old Banjo might have struggled with his lines from Clancy of the Overflow, if he had been sitting in an Osaka hotel room and not an office in George Street, but the sentiment may have been the same. “I am sitting in my tiny little hotel room, where a stingy ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the apartment buildings tall…”
Actually I have escaped the dingy hotel room for the restaurant because there is simply not enough room to sit and write. There is barely enough room to stand!

Despite the less than adequate space, we are superbly located near the thriving hub of shops and stalls where everything you can imagine can be purchased. And I am afraid to say that Jenny with her new pal Lyn, is giving it (the buying of everything imaginable) a decent crack. Jenny and Lyn launched themselves into the seething mass of people earlier this morning with a glint in their eyes and a spring in their steps. Steve and I had tagged along for a couple of kilometres into this mad area called Dotombori, then left the girls so we could meander along shopping for windows and admiring the quite expensive merchandise while keeping our quite short arms in our very long pockets.

The rain become heavy so we sought shelter in a café that Jenny and I had sought refuge in yesterday. It was warm and cosy and while the staff refused to show us the lunch menu until exactly 12 noon, we eventually had a tasty sandwich.

So we are in Osaka, and it is a few days since I have attacked the keyboard. We are now close to the end of our tour and I have a few days to catch up.

From Fukuyama we continued our journey in a south westerly direction towards the southern-most end of the major island of Honshu. Our destination is Hiroshima but along the way we stopped to visit the wee island of Itsukushima a small island just off the coast and requiring a half-hour ferry ride (or a “fairy ride” according to the guide!). The island has a very important shrine as well as a dramatic torii gate set in the water. The shrine itself follows the contours of the shore and at high tide the buildings are over the water. There is something alluring and peaceful about these religious sites and it is easy to see how the religions of Japan have shaped the character of the people in a very positive way.

We arrived at Hiroshima in the afternoon and of course we visited the essential sites – the ruins of the prefecture building that partially survived the atomic blast and serves as a stark reminder of this momentous and historic event. The Peace museum is spirit-numbing. Naturally we have incorporated the victors’ view of Hiroshima as a necessary act to shorten and end the war with Japan. The museum documents the bombing in a very honest way that brings to front of mind the impact on ordinary humans. Hiroshima was a military city and I suppose in that sense a justifiable target, but… you are given pause when you think about how a city could be obliterated in one horrific moment, and of the ongoing trauma of the lived experience of the survivors.

The museum experience ends on a more optimistic note documenting the peace movement that came from this with the imperative that this should never happen again. It was a very sobering time. We have now seen three museums that have portrayed horrifying narratives of what humanity is capable of – the Museum of Apartheid in Johannesburg, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem and this one in Hiroshima, and each one leaves the visitor with a chance to see a redemptive possibility: In Johannesburg, it celebrates the people and martyrs who brought down apartheid; the Jerusalem museum leads you out of the shock of holocaust to a beautiful vista overlooking a green valley, that seems to point to more hopeful possibilities for humanity; and of course Hiroshima points to the hope of peace through the endeavours of the next generation.

Saturday was a rather miserable day as we left Hiroshima for Fukuoka. It was quite wet when we stopped at a small place called Irori Sanzoku for some lunch. The opportunity to stop here was shared by vast numbers of people but we found a lovely place to eat, even though it meant stooping at the very low tables. The food was fabulous – Bandit Chicken, and it looked like the chook may have been the size of a small emu. It took a bit of effort to unravel ourselves from squat positions, but eventually we succeeded.

We were very glad to get to Fukuoka, as our hotel was luxurious. Huge rooms, and our bed was massive – King-Plus. There was a good laundry so our clothes caught up with some needed cleansing. I availed myself of a massage. The masseuse was a frail-looking Japanese lass who was extraordinarily gentle – except when she was not, and with my face buried in the bench I probably bit a large hole right through the mattress. I felt so much better when she stopped. It was very much a quiet time in Fukuoka and we enjoyed strolling the streets and even found a large supermarket where we could replenish some supplies. Such as decent coffee bags, as even the best hotels have rubbish instant coffee in the rooms. Unfortunately our inability to grasp the finer points of Japanese script foiled us and the thin sheets of what we imagined might have been dried coffee turned out to be seaweed! And it was not an alternative to coffee.

From Fukuoka we drove to Kyushu, a port city where we boarded a fairly substantial ferry for an overnight trip back up to Osaka. We had fully expected very small cabins, but what we had was substantial, and certainly much larger than our hotel room here in Osaka. In Osaka we have been largely left to our own devices which has mainly involved shopping and eating. While this particular hotel is a bit on the small side, it is really well located close to the heart of Dotombori, narrow streets with thousands of shops and eating opportunities. Jenny and Lyn have found it like heaven. Walking through there last night though, with some heavy rain setting in, it was a bit like my Tokyo experience of Death by Umbrella. This time however, I had taken careful note of the Ninja tactics for self defence, and I was able to terrify my assailants. While I did not have a Ninja sword, an umbrella and a fearsome attack pose seemed to be effective.

So, tomorrow, Wednesday is an optional day tour that we have taken up. It will be a very full itinerary with a late finish with a happy hour. And then we head home Thursday, landing in Sydney early on Good Friday.
We have thoroughly enjoyed this holiday, established some nice friendships, and we will be catching up with some next month in Canberra. I have not recounted the many, many visits to shrines and temples, bridges and castles, so I will leave that to imagination. Needless to say, our steps each day have been substantial.
On landing, we will head north for a couple of days with Tony and Janet, who have been minding our car while we have been away. We drive back to Canberra on Sunday, hopefully to avoid the Easter traffic expected on Monday. This is our Easter Hope.

If you have been reading along, we thank you for doing this and for the kindness of the various comments.

Mata ne

Jenny and Bill