I'm sure as we age all of us have bucket list items and as the lyrics to the song goes "every body needs a little time away"
Well for as long as I can remember my wife and I have always had the desire to travel to Japan but more specifically at cherry blossom time. We came close last year but instead we travelled to Washington DC during cherry blossom time and as much as we loved this trip it pales in comparison to cherry blossom time in Japan. Cherry blossom time is some what predictable but never a given as the time will change annually depending on the local weather.. Usually this time is between April 1-15 but can also occur in the last part of March. Asa result we booked our trip from April 2-15 figuring we should see something. We paid a lot of money and hoped for the best. I say this because out of 365 days a year, cherry blossom time in Japan lasts all of 7 days. Our trip was to see as much of Japan as we could in that time frame and hoped that we got lucky re cherry blossom time. Towards the end of March the weather in Japan warmed and several cherry blossom trees were in bloom and we figured we would miss most of it. A few days later however the weather cooled in Japan putting a delay in the bloom and we figured that this year we would get lucky. After getting home yesterday I can say that not only did we get lucky but it was reported that this was one of the best years on record for cherry blossom time. As an overview I will preface my remarks by saying that Jaan is one of the most beautiful countries we have ever visited. The people are kind, friendly and always helpful. It is such a wonderful culture and we truly became assimilated into it during our 2 week stay. The cities are huge and modern and amongst the cleanest we have ever seen. You truly could eat off the ground as cleanliness is part of the Japanese culture and way of life. In fact in the close to 1500 miles we traveled throughout the country in that time, only once did we see any graffiti and that was so minor that if you blinked you would have missed it as it was some black markings on an overpass and that was all we saw. Further in the 2 weeks we were there we only saw 2 homeless people and they were together in a very popular district in Osaka. Also during that 2 week time, only once did we ever see a person smoking .There is no smog even in the biggest cities.
I was surprised to read that Japan has a population of about 130 million people with 14 million living in Tokyo, no hi Tokyo was without doubt one of the busiest metropolises we have ever seen. Nothing goes laterally in Tokyo but only upward as there are so many people. Not once did we see a single residence home but only apartment buildings. The business district was busting with activity and the buildings were amongst some of the most beautiful we have ever seen. I even got up the nerve to travel to the top of the Tokyo sky tower and that was thrilling.
It seems there is very little zoning laws as wherever there was some empty space, something got built on it. We saw huge buildings only to see a small house or apartment building between. It wasn't until we left Tokyo that we began t see houses. What was also noticeable in the countryside, everywhere there were homes there were adjacent lots all of which were filled with rice fields and occasionally what and cabbage. No one anymore who dies is buried as there is no space. By decree of the Emperor, everyone now is cremated and each local village has there own cemetery and each stone is a single family stone where all of the ashes of the family's decedents rest.
So for those who are interested I will post our itinerary and the hotels in which we stayed at every spot. As to the economy it seems to be booming yet we went when the yen was at a low and we were Abe to dine at wonderful places for minimal money. Each city is different and are very modern.
Transportation nationwide seems to be by train and twice we were on a bullet train and that experience was one of a kind. I have never been on a bullet train so that was a memorable experience with speeds up to 275 miles per hour . We traveled from Hiroshima to Osaka in just over an hour.
I also never realized just how mountainous a country Japan is with every island being mountainous Seeing Mount Fuji was something to behold. The islands are all connected by elaborate bridges and what really impressed me was the infrastructure as we must have travelled through hundreds of tunnels where the shortest way to travel was not around the mountains but through them. These tunnels and bridges are so numerous that we were amazed at the amount of man hours taken to build these. One of the world's largest suspension bridges connect one island to another. It was quite interesting traveling over the ocean on this bridge to get to the next island. There are so many trees on the hillside that wood is never a scarce commodity so necessary in the construction industry. Here in California we too have mountains and it is not uncommon to have rock slides in the wet weather or after an earthquake. In Japan every hillside had concrete restraints on the hillsides to prevent anything coming down onto the highways. Driving is left sided as In Europe and the highway system was very modern
We saw countless Buddhist and Shindo temples and many castles of Samurai and Shogun origin. The architecture of these fascinated us as they have been standing for 6-7 centuries or longer.
But I digress as it was cherry blossom time that was the magical link to the entire trip as the whole country ws in bloom. I took well over 1000 photos as it seemed that whenever I thought I had captured the best shot there were always more whenever we turned our heads . So for those interested below I will outline where we were and what we saw along with all of the hotels in which we stayed
Finally the most sobering part of the journey was our visit to Hiroshima. where in 1945 the city population was 300,000 and 130.000 people were killed from the atomic bomb. The entire city now has 3 million people and the city was literally rebuilt. The hotel in which we stayed was less than half a mile from the epicenter. We visited Memorial Museum recounting the devastation of that day. it was chilling to hear the sobs of visitors moving through this museum. talking t the Japanese people in the museum at the time, and questioning how they feel about we Americans, we saw that the animosity that they carried was not to we Americans but rather to the Japanese army and Emperor Hirohito by not surrendering when they new the war was lost. Sadly it took the lives of 130, 000 civilians in Hiroshima and more devastation a few days later in Nagasaki where an even bigger bomb caused great carnage as well
So come along with me as I recount where we were and the photos I took to capture the moment as well as the beauty of the country during cherry blossom time and the splendors of Japan
