Day 13 & 14 - Culture and Sculpture

Sunday 2nd and Monday 3rd November 

It’s hard to admit and I don’t want to admit it …. But I am a broken woman.  Over the last 2 weeks I have walked about 4,00000000 miles and most of it up hill or up steps …. So as this is a holiday, I have made the executive decision to make Sunday and Monday days of rest (think Scott is also secretly pleased, though he won’t say it 😉).

There’s also another reason …. Monday is Culture Day and is officially a public holiday …. It’s hugely popular and it is sooooo busy around the area.  Sunday probably would have been OK, but the good old internet warned me that there would be closures and a skeleton public transport service on Monday.

Decision made - Sunday is a quiet day and Monday we would be staying local.

As it turned out - Monday was a good day.  We were just going to wander round Hiroshima and also hit a big Daiso.  We found out the Daiso was in a shopping center next to a park… I park I didn’t know about.

Hijiyama Park ….. of course it on the top of a bloody hill, but we are here now so going for it…. How many hills have I gone up this week?!?!?!? 

At the bottom of the hill there was a notice board with a map of the area and the park …and a sign saying the Museum of Contemporary Art was free to go in today as it’s Culture Day ….. this is great - but Scott and I are really not Contemporary Art type people so even though it’s free, we might give it a miss!

So - this park was built in 1903 and was the first park to be opened in Hiroshima.  It’s a very popular cherry blossom viewing park, but as it’s November, we are looking at more oranges and reds …. 

As well as being the site of MOCA, it’s known for being a sculpture part and there is art all over the place … none of which we understood, but some of it was pretty 😍.

We’ve trekked up the hill and made it to the viewing spot which had great views of Hiroshima and the Seto Inland Sea.

At the observation point, there is a monument which had messages of peace from the G8 leaders when they were in Hiroshima in 2023.

We now made our way to the SkyWalk.  This is a huge escalator that takes us up the rest of the hill and towards a shopping center…..

Once in the shopping center, we were supposed to be going to a Daiso, but got distracted on the 3rd floor by a shop called Bookoff Super Bazaar …I thought it was a book shop … which I can’t resist…. However, when we got there it was a huge second hand shop that sold everything from Kimono (well Yukata), toys, TV and electrics, clothes … soooo many clothes and bags, a huge nerd/geek section, DVDs, CDs, musical instruments and books!

I could have bought so much, but had to restrain myself as I’ve already got a lot of stuff to bring back …. 

There was also a pet shop …. With actual doggies in actual windows ….

So after dragging ourselves out of the shop, it’s time to make a retreat.  We made a god decision today ‘cos it was really busy, lots of people taking advantage of the free access to museums ….

Usual routine …. Tourist bus back to the station, stop off for food and then back to the house to collapse ….

Not planning too much from now as we are almost at the end of the holiday … how the hell did that happen.

So until tomorrow - Oyasumi Nasai ❤️