Back in Osaka, back chez Tim, where you can tell you're getting near his place when you spot Hotel Mickey Cookies.
Mickey Cookies is a Love Hotel.
A "love hotel" (ラブホテル) is a type of short-stay hotel found in Japan operated primarily for the purpose of allowing couples privacy to have sexual intercourse.
Which is probably why you can rent it for 90 minutes.
And hire costumes.
But that was just on the way to the Osaka Aquarium!
We arrived at the aquarium just after it opened (as recommended by Lonely Planet Japan) to a sign advising that there were ... a LOT of schoolchildren inside. Like thousands. And they recommended that we come back later.
But we had come all this way so we went inside the door where a lady reiterated what the sign said and handed us two tickets to the IMAX theatre show "Under the Sea" to occupy some time before we could come back and brave the hordes.
So occupy some time we did. Incidentally, I had really wanted to see "Under the Sea" narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet when Craig and I were at the Science Museum in London but he scoffed, and we didn't see it.
Instead we saw it completely in Japanese, not dubbed by Kate and Johnny, and it was just as amazing. Impressive 3D and an empty cinema (seriously, there were two other people in there, and the IMAX cinemas are LARGE). Plus, due to the complete language barrier I got to play the fun game "fucking or fighting?".
By the time we made it back to the Aquarium pretty much all trace of the children was gone. It was a little eerie. But we got to go inside!
The Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan (海遊館) is one of the largest public aquariums in the world and is home to a pair of Whale Sharks.
Whale Sharks are the largest living fish species and can grow to 12m in length. Their mouths? can up be up to 1.5 metres wide.
But I was more impressed by (unsurprisingly) the Manta Rays.
Partly because of my well documented love of Rays, partly because it was completely unexpected, partly because as a child I had read and reread and reread The Girl of the Sea of Cortez by Peter Benchley and it just ... stuck with me.
(they had other Rays there as well)
Craig christened this species the Dork Ray.
Christmas time at Kaiyukan
And randomly, as you leave, there is a Capybara.
Ah. Just like that, I'm exhausted. I will finish of this day later.
So. Many. Fish. Photos.
A breakfast of Brioche (I hope) and Sports Water (we never did work out what that flavour was) before heading out to, of all things, the Mazda Museum.
Yes. Seriously.
It wasn't exactly interesting to me, but Craig enjoyed it. And I did like seeing the Assembly line. No photos of that though, in case I sold trade secrets or something.
1990s concept car, designed to look like a water bubble. I like it.
We caught the train back to Hiroshima and then a tram down to the A-Bomb Dome and Peace Park.
The Mobilised Students Memorial.
Children's Memorial - for Sadako Sasaki
I remember a little yellow book in my primary school library all about Sadako, and a song that we sung in choir.
Sadako was two when the bomb exploded in 1945 and was diagnosed with leukemia at 10 years old. On her sickbed she started folding paper cranes spurred on by the Japanese saying that one who folded 1,000 cranes was granted a wish, by August 1955 she had reached her goal but she continued to fold cranes until her death in October 1955.
SADAKO FROM HIROSHIMA
1. She saw the Thunderbolt in the sky
like a million suns, it prickled her eyes;
she saw the Thunderbolt in the sky -
two years old, it prickled her eyes.
But now she sits making paper cranes,
paper cranes, paper cranes.
Now she sits making paper cranes - Sadako from Hiroshima.
2. She was a runner, swift and strong,
she was tall and slim and her legs were long;
she was a runner, swift and strong -
ten years old and her legs were long.
3. She went to hospital tired and weak,
it was hard to laugh, it was hard to speak.
she went to hospital tired and weak,
eleven years old, it was hard to speak.
And now she sits ...
4. She lost the race that she wanted to win -
paper cranes couldn't cover her with their wings,
cranes couldn't cover her with their wings -
twelve years old and she wanted to win.
And now she lies with her ...
5. This is our cry, this is our prayer,
"May the crane of peace fly everywhere!"
This is our cry, this is our prayer,
"Crane of peace fly everywhere!
Peace flame
A lovely Japanese man carrying his own DSLR offered to take this photo, it worked much better than at Fushimi Inari where a well meaning American lady carrying a little point and shoot offered to take one similar.
She was perplexed by the viewfinder, ahh how cameras have changed.
There were small groups of children running around talking to tourists and practising their (ever so polite) English.
They asked what our names are, where we were from, our favourite part of Japan, and if we had a message for the Japanese people. They had us write our answers on 1 side of a piece of paper and circle our home city on the world map printed on the other.
In exchange they gave us each one of these pink pieces of paper.
Craig has a photo on his camera of me with the Japanese school children. We are the same height.
Korean Memorial
(it's no use Mr James, it's turtles all the way down)
Fanta Jelly!
8:15
8:15
Hiroshima Museum
A hilariously unplanned photo of Craig caught thinking.
Some of Sadako's cranes!
A girl, holding a fish, riding a fish. Of course.
Hiroshima Castle.
Back at Hiroshima Station.
Waiting ...
Waiting ...
and a slightly slower bullet train back to Osaka.
