Osaka (Take 2), Fukuoka and Hiroshima Japan - Week 6 & 7

Hello Family and Friends,

As it is our second time in Osaka, I'm officially calling Osaka the underground city. I do believe that you can get through most of downtown with a combination of underground tunnels and overhead bridges. For example, we got 7,000 steps and never touched the ground outside. That was just going from one hotel to another hotel about 5 blocks away. I'll be honest, part of those steps is that we were a little lost and did walk in at least one circle. And we were still finding underground tunnels that we had never seen. It really is a puzzle everyday.

Model Lego on display outside of the Lego store in one of the underground passageways. This wave is on a lot of the Japanese money.

Atlas favorite Lego model. I think it is because of all the cars.

A samurai Lego model because why not.

Even though you could spend your entire time underground, that doesn't mean that there isn't plenty going on at the street level as well.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c45804_b3589b9b65434ce29f831e8b60600d3f/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

This is a short video of a blind soccer league warming up.

There was a multiday tournament occurring and we caught a team warming up on the last day of the the tournament. All the players wear blindfolds except the goalie. All players have some visual deficit and the blindfolds create an equal playing field. The ball makes noise and there are also verbal cues from the coaches on the sidelines.

After leaving Osaka we took the train to Fukuoka. Brett read that it's a recommended place to live if you don't want to live in what is called the golden route: Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. Our hotel was connected to a shopping complex which had a water show every half hour.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c45804_b9db0d9a6036410e8fdf6df5d1f3385e/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

 Was able to catch the finale of this classical piece.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c45804_be996c7af88f461e8dbcccae24205b65/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

We also enjoyed the hotel lounge with a live performance of Alicia Keys song "If I Ain't Got You"

We also visited the Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine. We have been to a lot of shrines in Japan, but this one was the prettiest.

Standing on the bridge at the Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine

Another beautiful view of the mountains and across the pond from the Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine

Atlas wanted to have his photo taken too.

A local told us that this shrine is popular with the students as they come here before exams to pray that they may get good scores.

Just barely caught that there is a whole forest growing on top of the shrine.

In addition to the shrine we also visited this great park, Uminokamichi Seaside Park. We were able to rent bikes with a child seat and ride along a dedicated bike path. Along the way we stopped at a zoo located inside of the park.

A kangaroo with a joey in her pouch. Don't think we actually saw any of these in Australia.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c45804_6df08400bc4e41728ed0100119d1f6c6/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Atlas petting a giant tortoise.

 I refused to touch the pig. The only thing they are good for is eating.

There were at least three different varieties of monkeys at this zoo.

 Brett says these white bird wings make Atlas look like an angel.

We also biked past three huge playgrounds, a large field of flowers and a big open field with food trucks and families just hanging out. That is just what we saw on the loop that we took on our bikes. We wished we would have started the day a little earlier so that we could have had more time to explore the bike trails and the park. We paid about six dollars USD to get into the park and about eight dollars USD for a manual bike. Brett rented an electric scooter for about fifteen USD. Everything else was included as apart of the park. It really was a great space to spend time outdoors. We saw so many families with wagons filled with outdoor games.

We then left Fukuoka and took a train to Hiroshima. Brett says that everyone wants to see where the first nuclear bomb was dropped. I wasn't sure, I asked Brett if we were going to get some kind of genetic mutation being at ground zero where a nuclear bomb exploded. He said naw, the bomb exploded in the air so it actually spread much further than they expected. The whole reason we stopped testing nukes is because we realized that even when we exploded them in the air in the middle of nowhere, worldwide radiation levels increased. We realized we were nuking the whole world whenever we tested a bomb. So whatever nuclear mutations there are from air bomb drops, we already have them. Glad that fear was assuaged, because it was surreal being at ground zero where a nuclear bomb was dropped.

This was essentially ground zero as the bomb exploded right above this dome (Genbaku Dome). Everyone inside died instantly. This dome is now a World Heritage site and is being preserved as it was after the bombing.

This is the peace bell.

This is the peace memorial: If you look through the arch you can see the eternal flame that then lines up with the Ganbaku Dome.

Everything around Hiroshima is about striving for peace and the eradication of nuclear weapons. There are multiple memorials that say things like we will not make the same mistake again. The destruction of the city was just so utterly instantaneous and complete.

A memorial showing the destruction at the hypocenter where the nuclear bomb exploded.

It is surreal to see the destruction of the nuclear bomb and then to see the city that they have built on top of the rubble. Hiroshima very much feels like a smaller version of Osaka. I would have loved to stay in Hiroshima a few more days, but we couldn't find any reasonable accommodations for more than one day because it is golden week in Japan. There are three holidays that all fall in this same week. It is like Japanese spring break. The kids are out of school and there are lots of sales at the malls. I can tell it is a big holiday in Japan: the hotel pools are full of kids, the hotel gym is busy and the onsen's are busy as well. Most of the time there's maybe one person in the pool or the gym and no one is at the onsen. But during golden week there are people everywhere. For the first time since being in Japan I felt overwhelmed by too many people: in the metro, in the malls, in the pool, in the gym, everywhere.