A week ago, we were flying out to Japan. A week ahead, we will be arriving back in London Today (Saturday), we were in Hiroshima.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Actually we spent almost five hours on an island, officially called Itsukushima (Island of the Gods), but popularly known as the Island of Shrines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our ferry approached at high tide so that the imposing red O-torii Gate appeared to be floating because the base was under water. The present gate is the ninth version and dates back to 1875.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The island is home to a Shinto shrine and – much more extensive and impressive – a Buddhist temple. The Daishoin Temple has multiple levels, statues and structures including a great bell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the hill housing the temple, Jenny and I stopped for a coffee and cake. Then, down among the shops, we had lunch of fried oysters which are a local delicacy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were back at our hotel at 3.45 pm and had the rest of the day to ourselves. Jenny and I decided to walk tothe nearby Peace Memorial Park in advance of our \u2018official\u2019 visit tomorrow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima at 8.15 am on\u00a06 August 1945 and killed some 200,000. The Peace Memorial Park contains the Peace Museum and many tributes to the dead\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was at the Peace Memorial Park in November 1998 and today renewed my memories of the various commemorative structures, notably the dome, the flame, and monuments to the children and Korean victims. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the evening, Jenny and I had another authentic Japanese meal. It is called \u2018okonomi yaki\u2019 – \u2018okonomi\u2019 means literally \u2018to one\u2019s liking\u2019 while \u2018yaki\u2019 means \u2018fried\u2019. The dish is a kind of pancake with basic ingredients of cabbage and bean sprouts and then all sorts of additions (I had cheese and pork).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are two styles: Hiroshima which is layered and Osaka which is mixed. Obviously we had the former and it was delicious – and filling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A week ago, we were flying out to Japan. A week ahead, we will be arriving back in London Today (Saturday), we were in Hiroshima. Actually we spent almost five hours on an island, officially called Itsukushima (Island of the Gods), but popularly known as the Island of Shrines. Our ferry approached at high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29678"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29682,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29678\/revisions\/29682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}