Nevertheless, we forged on. Along the way, Tom thought he could rival this lady's poise, in a garden near the Hiroshima public library...
And we couldn't miss Hiroshima Castle! This was just the back gate.
We entered...
And admired the guard tower...
And then Tom spotted these guys and yelled out "Ninjas!!!". It looks like the castle has been infiltrated.
The grounds inside the castle's moat were enormous. We passed, but decided not to enter this shrine, Gokoku Jinja.
Because this was our main goal. Hiroshima Castle. It obviously didn't survive the bombing since it's made of timber, but was reconstructed.
There were no pictures allowed inside, but we took this in the foyer just before we entered. The little square area surrounded by water in the centre is the castle grounds. The castle itself sits in the very top left of the square.
We climbed all the way to the top, and came out onto this balcony, where we figured we could take pictures again, since we were outside.
So we did!
I never seem to get tired of the juxtaposition of old and new.
And let's face it. The roofs are pretty. Tom was fascinated by the little stacked up bits supporting the curving ridge cap thingie. Like my terminology?
We stayed up there basking in the breeze for a while (of which there had been no sign on the ground), until we eventually decided that we had to keep up our sightseeing mission, and moved on.
Nevertheless, the mural was pretty darn impressive! It went for a loooong way!
I haven't actually been able to find any information about its origins, or the story that it tells, so if anyone knows, please tell me. For the meantime, you'll basically get the same experience we did, as we wandered along it and snapped photos and oohed and aahed at the pretty pictures without knowing a thing about them.
With all that walking in the heat, when we spotted the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum we decided to go in, see what it had to offer, and most importantly, get some air conditioning and hopefully a spot to sit down.
This is the first thing we saw as we entered. Umbrella lockers! Only the Japanese!
We found out that it cost quite a lot to see the exhibit (I can't remember how much now), so decided to just enjoy the foyer for a little while and recharge our batteries.
When we finally emerged, we rounded the corner, and spotted this marvelous contraption. A bicycle with a built-in umbrella holder? Genius!!!
We found the entrance to the Shukkei-en gardens a little further along that same street, and paid our entrance fee.
And so began our slow wander (hours and hours walking around in intense humidity meant we were traveling at a snail's pace) through the garden.
It was very nice.
I especially liked this little island.
That pagoda across the water sure looked good, so we made a beeline for it (well actually it's probably not a beeline if you have to go around a body of water, is it?).
Found this pretty little arrangement of bridges on the way... (and I clutched the camera for dear life while crossing them as my imagination ran wild suggesting all the ways I and my belongings could end up in the water).
And we made it to the pagoda. Unfortunately there were two problems though. One was, that sign (which thankfully had a small English translation on it) said that we had to remove our shoes, the other was that it was bathed in sunlight. We needed shade. Badly. And the effort to remove shoes (and then to have to put them back on again later - heaven forbid) was too much to consider bearing.
So we snapped a quick picture across the lake to a skyscraper - old and new again...
And then found a shady path to explore.
And an even shadier bamboo forest! Lovely!
I took way too many photos of the sunlight filtering through the bamboo stalks. I'll spare you them all, and just show you one.
OK, I lied. Here's another. But this time the sunlight's hitting them front on! Hah! I didn't lie!
As we made our way out of the bamboo forest we sighed as we approached this little set of stairs, and trudged up them. Have I played up how weary we were enough yet? The heat takes it out of you, what can I say?
And we made our way around the lake, to its main bridge.
Where we paused in the sun long enough to snap a photo before our skin started burning...
Tom couldn't resist playing King of the Castle...
And then we spotted some carp and a turtle in the water beside us!
We shamelessly lured them toward us with the classic I-have-food-in-my-hand gesture...
Worked like a charm!
And when we reached the other side of the bridge, we spotted an area a little further along where someone had just finished feeding them, and we decided to get a closer look at the action. It was chaos! Carp, turtles and pigeons, all fighting for their pound of flesh!
Again, I went nuts with the camera, but I'll spare you most of it. I love this set of shots of this one determined (although doomed to fail) turtle, though!
The almost completely rotten support to this bridge should probably have caused us some alarm, but we gave it the benefit of the doubt, and made it over safely.
We climbed another bridge... the pretty red one this time...
Looked back at another bridge that we'd climbed over... yes there were a lot of bridges...
And then we spotted this. A lovely little pebble beach!
And so we did this!
And gazed at this view for a while. I would have been happy to stay there for hours if it weren't for the insects. Can't have everything, I suppose.
So we moved on. And a little further on, Tom said to me "hey look, there's a carpark!" I was looking around, completely mystified, until I realised. It's a carp-park. I laughed. I laughed a lot.
We snapped one final shot of our dishevelled and weary selves to commemorate the moment, before making our way back towards the exit.
Just near the exit was this photo, taken after the bombing. Apparently that tree still remains, and you can see the little bridge in the background (the same one in the background of our shot above).
In fact, I think there's a good chance that the tree you can see on the left here is that same tree!
The rest of our day was fairly uneventful. We made our way slowly back towards our hotel, deciding (foolishly) to forgo public transport yet again and just use our poor little legs. It gave me time to admire some lovely green footpaths...
And we stopped in at a supermarket and admired their extensive fish department...
Oh, and we spotted a very efficient bicycle carpark along the way...
And that was about as exciting as it got. We wandered the streets near our hotel in search of food that night (once we'd summoned up the energy again), didn't come across anything particularly interesting, and that was our big day in Hiroshima over!
