Any Colour You Like

It has been quite an eventful period since last post. The aquarium in Osaka was great – I haven’t been to an aquarium in about ten years so it was a timely visit. And fortunately Osaka has the biggest fish tank in the world so I got to see a pair of whale sharks up close. And they are massive! There were also japaneese river otters which were cool, a sloth which was random, some massive freaky crabs, and some large dumb fish with no fins on their sides only on their heads and tummies.

At 10pm we wandered up north in Osaka to the Umeda sky building. The best way to describe it is two boxes of cerial with an aerobie frizbee across the top. From the front it looks like a modern 176m tall arc d’triumph but the viewing gallery is a ring on the top. Anyhow, it costs 700¥ to go up any you get your money’s worth form the scaryness of the elevator ride. This is somewhat perched on the outside of the building with a bit to much of an expanse of glass and nothingness for comfort. The top is awesome though. Photos will come soon but the skyline is stunning and the city (like all japanese cities we have seen) seems to go on forever.

Hiroshima A-Bomb Dome

We weren’t really sure where to go for our last day of ‘free’ rail travel on our rail cards. But somewhat spontaneously we jumped on a train to Hiroshima. We therefore got some more good contrast to the holiday. The a-bomb dome is a building that was at the epicentre of the blast and was therefore not completely flattened. It has been preserved as a monument to Hiroshima’s continuing aim for world peace and it is extremely poignient amongst the high rise modern buildings. Likewise the peace park with it’s flame of peace that will burn until all nuclear weapons have been decomissioned. The most moving though is the museam. It takes you through what Hiroshima was like before the bomb and the reasons it was chosen as the first city to suffer nuclear attack. There are harrowing displays of the distruction, death, injury and suffering the bomb caused and you frequently don’t want to read any more but are somehow compelled to. And it finishes by discussing the current state if nuclear proliferation and what can be done. It will really open your eyes and everyone should go.

Go Carp!

But after that we really needed some light relief, and what better way that cheering along to Japans most popular sport. Well we could hardly not go and see the Hiroshima Carp baseball team squash the Yakult Swallows 7-6 at the Mazda stadium. The whole town was going and we were kind of sweped along. But it was cool and everyone was terribly enthusiastic. I thought it was quite exciting at the beginning and end but there was a bit of a dull patch in the middle. The game was 4 hours long after all… But it was good cause we ate noodles and drank beer and even tried to copy some of the supporter chants. Not really sure how that went but we should get points for effort on the Japaneese speaking, no??