The Peace Memorial and Kagura

As expected, it was raining when we woke this morning. We lazed around in our room for a good long while, deciding what to do today. Eventually we got our butts moving and headed to the station.

In the US, there would be protests...

We got our JR Passes for the train rides we'll be taking the rest of the trip, reserved some seats on the Shinkansen for Saturday, then headed to the tram station to catch the local train to the Peace Memorial Museum area, where there are a number of places of interest. First up was the old Hiroshima branch of the Bank of Japan. It was one of the reinforced concrete buildings that was blown out and burnt, but remained standing after the bomb. It has been converted into a museum filled with personal stories not just of the atomic bomb, but of other bombing survivors around the world. There is no English here, so it was a bit of a struggle for us to follow some of what was being said, but the overall impact was felt.

After the Bank, we visited the Peace Memorial Museum. We had visited this on our last trip to Hiroshima, and I was interested in revisiting it. Sadly, the museum was under "renovation and earthquake-proofing", so the exhibits had been moved to a much smaller side building. They were still there, and there were some new exhibits, which was nice. Unfortunately, about 45 minutes into our visit, every middle school in Hiroshima took a field trip to the museum. As the space was much smaller than the regular museum, it got very full and very loud very quickly. We decided we'd had enough, and headed out towards the Peace Memorial itself

Obligatory memorial photo, but still nice

The Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. The building at the center of the bomb detonation and the only structure that was still standing afterwards. Now the "Genbaku Dome" is a symbol of the destructive power of nuclear weapons.

It was raining pretty steadily at this point, and we were hungry and tired (the week catching up with us, I think). So we had a conversation about where to eat. It went something like this:

Me: Well, we could try some Gyuudon or Okonomiyaki?
Sumi: Let's get some gyoza!
Me: OK, but maybe that place we passed yesterday?
Sumi: I want gyoza!
Me: How about...
Sumi: GYOZA!

And thus we found ourselves at Gyoza no Oushou, a chain of Gyoza restaurants that serve Chinese-inspired dishes, as well. Sumi did get her gyoza and some tonkotsu ramen, while I had the "Service Lunch" special, which on Wednesdays was spicy tonkotsu ramen and a version of omuraisu (omelet served over or stuffed with rice).

Generally Oushou is great at gyoza and meh at everything else, but the ramen was quite good, and the rice and egg concoction wasn't bad either. Full and sleepy, we headed back to the hotel for a nap....

Three hours later our alarm woke us up (good thing we set one). We roused ourselves and stumbled out to the train station to get ourselves to an evening of Japanese culture. Well, sort of. We were going to see a Kagura performance. Kagura is a form of ritualistic dance that dates back well over 1000 years. It was originally sacred dances performed by miko for the imperial court, but have evolved to a great degree, and there are multiple types of kagura. We were going to see Izumo-ryuu kagura, which is more of a dance tradition that enacts old folk tales. Every Wednesday night from April through December, there is a kagura performance in Hiroshima. Well, it was Wednesday, it was June, we were in Hiroshima. Kagura it is.

Of course, on our way to the show, the Hiroshima Carp faithful were trooping back to Mazda Zoom Zoom stadium, hoping this game wouldn't get rained out. They weren't alone...

What the...?

Lawson konbibi's mascot. A dancing squirrel, Mr. Popo

Yup, just another day in Japan.

The kagura was at a very nice local cultural performance hall. It consisted of four musicians (chuu-daiko, shime-daiko, chappa, and fue) and the dancers.

All of the costumes were hand-embroidered

The big battle!

Archers save the day!

The musicians were very good. The fue (flute) player, as we were told after the performance, was a 9th grader! These troupes are people who do this in their spare time, and she was as good as many professionals I have heard. The dancers...danced. I confess I am not much of a dance connoisseur. I did learn several important cultural details of import, however. I learned that people in ancient Japan walked in circles. A lot. And that when you fight a supernatural being, it requires both extended exposition by said being and a dance-off of at least five minutes.

All kidding aside, it was an interesting performance, and we were glad we went. But it was now 9pm, and well past our bedtime. We headed back to the hotel and called it a night. Tomorrow is our last cycling day as we go cross town (not a trivial ride) to the ferry port and visit the great temple island of Miyajima!