My first impression of Japan and our tour company was one of irritation. Arriving at the airport in Fukuoka was all completely normal. We found the representative from the tour company, Wendy Wu, and were shown to a waiting car. Our driver clearly had a nasty cold. She coughed and sniffed and blew her nose all the way to the hotel. An hour trapped in a little steel box with a Covid Mary kick started my irritation. Surely a taxi driver should show a little more responsibility? At the hotel, the first thing the Wendy Wu representative did was to ask for money. Although Wendy Wu had made all the travel arrangements, the time we had arrived attracted an early check-in charge. The early start, uncomfortable flight and snotty taxi driver had made me a bit grumpy, so I told them what I thought of the charge. I also noted that the hotel clearly had a room they were prepared to give us. There was no question of waiting for the cleaners or any practical issues. It was just about the money. We left our luggage (for free) and headed out to find some food. Karma was on our side. We came across a lovely vegetarian restaurant which fed us a wonderfully calming lunch. An hour later, back at the hotel, we checked-in without a murmur.
Bruce and Anita were still with us. We had a day to wait for the rest of the group so we went up a tower. This is often a fun thing to do in a new city. Find a tall tower and go up to the top for a look. The Fukuoka Tower provided the ideal opportunity. It was a perfect warm, sunny and clear day. At 234 m, this is the tallest seaside tower in Japan. Known for its mirrored triangular silhouette and panoramic views the tower has played feature roles in several Godzilla movies. It is hollow. A steel frame tower with a skin of half mirrored glass. Three observation platforms. After this excitement, we found a café for a light lunch before the taxi ride back.
In the evening, we joined the rest of the group for the introductory dinner. This did not go well. All the food had meat in it. Except for one dish that appeared to be tasteless snot coated in panko breadcrumbs and deep fried. Nobody liked this one. Later, we went out for a curry with Bruce and Anita. They are not vegetarians but were deeply unimpressed with the offered food.
The day trip to Nagasaki meant travelling on a bullet train. I was impressed with the train. Very fast, very comfortable and an original. No copying here. The train felt to have more in common with an aircraft than the slow, rattling things we have in the UK. There were some nice details. When the carriage door was open, the platform and floor were at the same level with just a small gap. You could easily roll a suitcase straight into the train. And of course, it all ran on time. To the second.
The Nagasaki Peace Park commemorates the atom bomb that was dropped here in 1945. The centrepiece is a large blue statue of a man pointing to the sky. His other arm points to the far horizon. Apparently, this symbolises eternal peace. To me, I imagined him pointing at the bomb carrying aircraft and saying, “Put that, over there”. That was the sentiment. In my mind he would use impolite expletives. Groups of schoolchildren lined up in front of the statue and sang songs. Others just stood and bowed. There was also a fountain of peace and many statues sent by different countries. Overall, there was a strong anti-nuclear message and an equally strong message about peace. I started to sense a hint of a contradiction here. All my life, I have been brought up with the “No thanks” sentiment about nuclear weapons. I have even attended the odd CND demonstration. But this bomb had ended a war.
From here, we went to the museum. This is a deliberately dark and gloomy display that attempts to convey the extent and depth of suffering that the bomb caused. 150,000 people were killed or injured. An area 6.7 sq km was levelled. Suddenly. Instantly. Without warning. Help was days in arriving. Many people died in the hours and days immediately following the explosion. It really was an extremely powerful bomb. An entire vibrant city was, in a flash, turned into a smouldering, radioactive wasteland. I felt the museum laboured this point too much. There was an awful lot about what a terrible thing was done to the people. There was nothing about why it was done.
Lunch was a disaster. Plain white rice and some plain boiled vegetables. Tasteless and almost devoid of nutrition. We bailed and wandered off to find a supermarket. Our dream was a cheese and salad sandwich. Sadly, cheese does not feature often in Japanese shops. Most of the people here, like in China, are lactose intolerant. The cheese market is extremely limited. We did eventually find some plain bread. Most of the bakery offerings include meat products. Lunch ended up being bread and peanuts.
In the afternoon we visited a church. This was boring. I think our guide was a catholic and keen to show off one of the very few catholic churches in Japan. We wandered some adjoining gardens for a while. Here I found some buildings that looked very typically Scandinavian. Is there a story here? I never found out but some of the buildings would have looked right at home in Copenhagen. Diane finished off her lunch with an ice cream while I had a beer. The second-best part of the day was the bullet train back to Fukuoka. That evening, we did not bother wasting time with the group meal. Instead, we found a nice Italian restaurant.
Next day we went to Miyajima, a small island outside of Hiroshima. The island is well-known for its main attraction, Itsukushima Shrine, a giant red torii gate. To get there meant taking a ferry. Several boats appear to run almost continuously back and forth. Our boat was packed. First, we joined a massive queue. When the gate opened, we ended up almost running for the boat. Fortunately, it was only a short crossing but I was still much happier once we got off.
We arrived in a tourist town. Essentially a single street from the quayside to the shrine, lined with tourist shops selling either food or souvenirs or both. There were deer here. We were warned about them. Do not feed the deer. Do not let them steal from your pockets or bags. Do not touch the deer. It was quite nice to see virtually tame deer wandering around. Diane sat next to one and it seemed completely unfazed. I also saw a kite flying around one of the buildings.
Past the tourist town and a bit further along a very crowded road brought us to a view of the shrine. There were an awful lot of people here all trying to take selfies with the shrine in the background. There was also a great crowd of people at the shrine and walking around it. At high tide the gate sits in the water. Now it was low tide. Many people were walking out across the wet sand to get up close with the gate. I took a few photographs of the gate and then used image processing software to remove all the people from the picture.
We were led through the temple by our guide. This proved to be especially boring. A sequence of buildings that had nothing in them. I completely failed to see the point of this. Our guide was a bit lacking in English skills and terrible at explaining things. I tried to follow what she was saying but most of it made little sense.
Temple done, we had a cooking class. Everyone was herded into a small room behind a cake shop. We were issued with aprons and arranged, in pairs, in front of cake cooking machines. Each station had a mould for two small cakes and a burner. You pour cake mix into the mould, add red bean paste, close the mould and cook over the burner. Four minutes cooking, flipping the mould over every 30 seconds. I enjoy cooking but here we were mostly watching a clock to rotate the mould every 30 s. Nothing was explained to us. The cakes are called Momiji Manju and are a local speciality. The cake mix appeared to be a standard sponge. The red bean paste was sweet. Both of these were supplied to us without discussion. I was just left to guess. Diane and I cooked four cakes. They came out fine and tasted quite nice although far too sweet for my liking.
