Two night photos

 

November 30 2024

Hiroshima to Kyoto

Okay now. Comfy room, feet up, hot soaking tub beckoning. Ya, just for a few minutes of a nice warm soak. Gracious that feels good.

Look Theresa ! You didn’t come to Japan to lounge in a tub of hot water, like a tea bag. This tori gate was in the top three sights to see in Japan for you. If you don’t get the flip up you are going to not get the shot and you are going to bitch at yourself for the next 10 years. GET UP!!

Dried off put on the closest clothes I could find. Broke out my winter parka, the fleece just wasn’t doing it in the daytime, so needed to upscale my warmth. I grabbed my shoes and hit the cold hard streets of Miyajima.

It was cool and the streets were paved, so I guess they were cold and hard. One thing they weren’t was, busy. The major walking street that was so crowded the you needed to snake your way through the crowds, regardless of if you were going upstream or downstream. Now ghostly empty. The stores all with their metal shutters pulled down and locked tight. The restaurants all closed, except for Starbucks with a lone customer. This is at 7pm on a Friday night.

There were several coveys of school children. All herded by one or two adults. There must have been three or four groups all in their uniform following the tall guy. The rain was barely more than a mist, but enough that I didn’t feel that going around the bay to get the full dozen shots were worth it. If I can get one pretty good shot I’ll be satisfied.

The children were congregating in one spot that I kind of liked, so I schooched to the side and braced my phone on a concrete street lamp (handheld night shot, don’t you know?) and pressed the button a few times. The iPhone took 2 seconds to get the exposure for each press.

I moved a few more street lamps and took a few more. If this didn’t get the exposure I wanted, I would just have to find a picture on the internet and claim it was mine. (I didn’t)

Back to the hotel with the tori gate and the wind behind me, through the empty streets to the hotel, and more soaking tub.

Morning came like it frequently does and I really didn’t want a Japanese breakfast. The one I experienced on in Kyoto all looked good, just not for breakfast. Tossed things into bags and looked wistfully at the soaking tub and checked out of the hotel. I did have one room charge and that was for the dinner the first night. A seafood extravaganza and in a hotel, if I can get away with $50 I won’t cry too much. 2200 Yen ?!?!?!? ($15) the same as ten story building in Hiroshima. Bargain time!

Breathing the fresh morning air, I pass a mature woman on the street, she smiles and warmly “Konichiwa”. Lady, what in the world are you doing being nice to a wandering tourist? Konichiwa back,ma’am.

The ferry terminal was easy to find and 30 seconds of reconnoitering to find the correct place. The man at the ferry ticket booth asked me where in wanted to go, he suggested the JR Ferry and then streetcar to town. That was an hour and a half on the street car and so many ways for things to go wrong, and I sure don’t want to taxi again.

This ferry ticket gets me close to town and I’ll catch a taxi from there.

I was the only person on my ferry going to Hiroshima, lots and lots of people going to Miyajima but still too early for the return crowd. The ferry was fast! I was on the street in perhaps 20 minutes.

I espied the signs for taxis and noticed a street car, marked Hiroshima Station just sitting there. Due to depart in 5 minutes. It was basically empty, maybe five other passengers what can go wrong? Nothing it seems. Got on, rode to the end of the line and got off, all for the beep of my Apple Watch.

Escalator up to the ticket counter. Still bypassing the ticket machines. If I can’t beep or speak to a human I’m staying still. The humans got me a seat on the train and with just a small bump in courtesy on my part by taking a reserved space for my luggage, I’m now seated going 150 mph towards Kyoto.

The train arrived just like it was supposed to, and not late either. I am staying at the same hotel as before so I just put it in autopilot and made my way there. Handed over my passport and quizzical looks. I can’t find your reservation. Oh, wait! You are at the other Sakura, that is four blocks away. Of course it is.

I walked and rolled to the new hotel. Same company, but most assuredly a step down from the previous Sakura. There appears to be no meal service. My room is different than all the others I have stayed in this trip. It is Japanese small. I am afraid to bring my wheeled luggage into the room for fear of then not having any room for me. I know on vacation rooms are for toilet and sleeping. It is one room that I won’t linger, that’s for sure.

With the luggage secure, I headed out to see the sights I had missed the first time through. There is a five floored pagoda that is located at the end of a street where the Geisha’s are said to frequent. I plugged it into Apple Maps and it said it was too far to walk today, that the bus was the best option. The 202 or 207 would get me within a few hundred feet. None of this 1.8 miles B.S.

The bus stop is just across the street from this hotel, and just as I arrived, it arrived. Sat down and went the requisite number of stops and exited to find I was not at any five floored pagoda. I was at a Shinto shrine. Oh, well. I’ll get an autograph in my book if nothing else. I snapped some snapshots, and tried to figure out how to find this damn pagoda. In line for the autographs a woman who looked like a tourist who might speak English became my new found tour director.

She was not a native speaker of English, but I showed her a picture of the temple and she said she knew it, and started to pull it up on Google. The first word she types is ‘pagoda’ and she had the name in 1/2 a second. With that in hand I could plug it into Apple Maps. I had looked it for half a dozen times, using search like “Gion temple” (Gion area of town it is located) the same with ‘shrine’. Results came back with too much information. Sort of like typing ‘church’ in Rome when you want to find the Vatican. you would get 1000 results and none of them would be right. I never thought to type ‘pagoda’.

Maps said it was only a few blocks away. Maps was right this time. I ran into it and all the rest of my fellow tourists who I hadn’t met yet. We were shoulder to shoulder up the street and if you wanted to take a photo and didn’t want anyone else in the picture, well that was an impossibility. If you wanted a picture without someone else’s phone in your frame you might have to wait a minute. I was nice that I got there at late afternoon, because the light on the pagoda was great.

Too soon the light faded and evening was coming. One of the famous temples that I have already visited is open after dark and the grounds are illuminated. I think other tourists might have heard of this too, because walking up the street was so crowded that there were pedestrian traffic cops keeping the Up line from encroaching into the Down line. Of course there were those who just couldn’t wait and passed. I might reach out with my shoe as they passed and catch their heel and make them have to reset their footwear. Not to say that I would do such a thing.

The line reached the top and after admission was paid I was in. I thought the street was crowded. The balustrades were six people deep all waiting for the darkness to come and the lights make the wait worth it. At exactly 5:30 the lights came on and the whole scene changed from muted muddled colors to yellows and reds. I found a spot that was only 4 people deep and slowly wormed my way towards the front. I swear, I think I got engaged a couple times on the way to the edge. I have been less intimate with people I have dated.

I got my photos. Not sure if they are keepers or not, but shooting the same thing over and over isn’t going to make them right, just more of the same.

Back on the street. Taxis looked scarce so I plugged into the Go app and requested a taxi. While I waited for it, 3 other cab companies stopped and offered me a trip. I don’t know what would have happened if I had accepted.

I had him drop me at the train station at the other side than my usual, and immediately got lost. I had to call up Maps to find my way out of the station. I have been there at least 1/2 a dozen times and I got lost.

Now Moscow Mule on table by my left hand in the hotel it’s quarter to 9pm guess it’s a night