Japan Day 10: Hiroshima, Peace Memorial Park, Sake Festival

We woke up late and rushed out the door to see the peace memorial museum which was located only a 5 min walk from our hotel. It was raining and it felt suitable for what we were about to see.

Inside the museum was all about the bombing of Hiroshima in WWII.  The Japanese presented what felt like a very unbiased and factual presentation of what happened.

before the bomb

after

Throughout the museum you could see that everyone was very emotionally effected and it was difficult not to shed a tear while reading about personal stories and seeing artifacts such as a wrist watch that stopped at 8:15am due to the explosion of the atomic bomb.

After the museum we walked through the peace memorial park to look at the cenotaph and paper crane monument build to remember all the children lost in the war.  We also rang the peace bell.

Next it was off to celebrate the good things in life such as music, food, and good times. We boarded a train and headed to Saijo which is a small university city 30min away from Hiroshima. They were holding the annual Sake Festival and as soon as we left the station the sidewalks were filled with people buying food from vendors. We picked up some karage among other things we did not know.

After a 5min walk we reached the Sake area that is closed off and a 1800 yen ticket is required for entry. We paid and were given a small sake cup and entered the area.

It was filled with people and maybe not suprisingly there were a lot of foreigners. Maybe even 30-40% of the crowd. And there was a big mix of all ages which was nice to see.

We had come to try out sake so we got started immediately. Along the perimeter ofthe area were bar counters and behind the bar tenders were bottles upon bottles of sake. You simply go up with your little cup and point at what you want. Nothing was written in English of course so we pretty much just chose randomly. The sake was really tasty and getting to try so many one after another allowed you to pick up on the differences in flavour.  There were over 900 differet sakes to try and each time we had one we marked it off on our little sheet.

As the night went on the sun went down and the lanterns came on. We met several people including a 23 year old bill gates doppleganger from Iowa. By the end of the night my mom had drank a dozen sakes and my dad and I made it to 20.

We left a bit before the end in fear of a large lineup at the train station and we were back in Hiroshima within the hour.   I was really happy to have gone to the festival with my parents. Iowa Bill was saying how cool it was that I was at the sake festival with my mom and dad and I had to agree :D.   We had a great time together.

We made it to the hotel just after Eliza had arrived from her day out with her friend and Eliza took care of me cause I was pretty buzzed :p. Thanks Liza!