Japan Trip Report Day 4
Somber, frustrating, zoom-zoom
The timing of the F1 race was already lucky for my trip, but the location being Nagoya was also fortuitous. Nagoya is where Toyota was founded, and they have two museums in the city. Sounds like a perfect activity for this Monday following the race weekend. Except their museums are closed on Mondays. Luckily, I knew this when planning and decided to leave on Tuesday. The Mazda Museum is in Hiroshima, which is only two hours away by shinkansen. Sounds like a good way to spend a free day.
At Nagoya Station I’m using the machine to buy my ticket, and the next train leaves in like 6 minutes. It’s like 30 minutes for the train after and I didn’t really want to wait. Now I am rapidly trying to go through the process of buying a ticket and then having to find the platform for the train. Luckily, the trains were just upstairs after the ticket gate and the train was there. I quickly boarded and found my seat and the train left right as I sat down. It all worked out.
I slept through much of the first shinkansen ride, so this was my first real experience of it. It’s very smooth, I downloaded an app to see how fast we were going, and it said we were going 160 mph, and you couldn’t even feel it.
When I arrived at Peace Park, I saw a little cafe in one of the buildings. Since I had left so early this morning I hadn’t eaten yet, so I stopped in for a bite. I got a katsu sandwich, a strawberry jelly, and a lemon soda. It was solid and hit the spot.
Peace Park and the Atomic Bomb Dome were incredibly somber. It’s a huge part of history that I’ve always wanted to visit, so I’m glad I was able to get the chance while I was in Japan.
After walking around the dome, I started to head to Hiroshima Castle. As I was crossing the street I saw a souvenir store I wanted to check out. They didn’t have anything, but it was in the Hiroshima Orizuru Tower. I saw they had an observation deck and decided to go up. The observation deck is open with netting, which makes getting photos a bit hard.
To get back down to ground level, the exit slopes you down to the floor below where you can catch the elevator. When I got to that floor, they had stations where you could fold an origami crane and add it to the collection that you can see from the side of the building. They had iPads with video and step-by-step instructions on how to make your crane. I found out I am not origamically talented. It took me forever to get something that resembled a crane. The girl working there saw mine and said “oh, that’s different.” When you finish you step out onto a glass walkway and toss your crane down below where they all collect, but I didn’t realize I was going to have to do this. I don’t agree with heights, so I shuffled out there dropped my crane, and then shuffled back to solid ground I couldn’t see through.
After that side-quest I finally made my way to Hiroshima Castle. Since I had spent so much time on my crane, I really didn’t have time to see much. The grounds and the castle were pretty.
The reason I didn’t have much time to spend there is because I had to find a place to eat before catching the bus for the Mazda Museum, which was a timed event. Walking towards where Google told me the bus depot was, I found this little bakery. There weren’t a lot of options that I thought would be quick, so gave this a try. This is where I realized the quality of the food in Japan is higher than ours. I just wanted something in my belly until I could get some okonomiyaki later and this ended up being a really good meal.
This is where I really got mad at Google Maps. I had to go to the bus depot, and I’m looking at the map and it’s not telling me anything it just has the dot in the middle of this building. I’m walking around and nothing says bus depot, it’s a department store. Ends up I had to go in the department store and go to the second floor and that exited to the bus depot. It was really frustrating. The other bus I’d ridden, I tapped my Suica card when I entered and that was it. This one the tap didn’t work, so I figured I just pay when I get off. I get to my stop, pull out my coins, go to put them in, and the bus driver is like “no, no, no”. I point to a different slot, and he’s still like “no.” He ended up taking the coins and putting them in the original slot I tried to put them in. I have no idea what was going on. It was really odd, and I wasn’t looking forward to taking the bus back.
The Mazda Museum is at their headquarters; you meet at the lobby and take a bus through their whole facility.
You pass by the design buildings and where they store the cars before they ship them off. They don’t let you take pictures of that part, but it was really cool to see. The museum itself isn’t really big. You watch a brief video about their history, then go upstairs where they have their earliest vehicles, some 3-wheeled motorcycles, the main room has about 20 cars. Most of the cars are 60s through the 90s. There are a few race cars, but the star of the whole thing is the 787B which won LeMans in 1991. They even have speakers and bring everyone around it so you can hear that 4-rotor rotary engine wail. Lots of car pictures incoming.
As we went through these first two rooms, the guide was telling us about the history and about some of the cars. Then we got a good amount of time to explore the cars on our own. The tour continued with a bit about Mazda’s technology and design style. Then we went out above the factory floor. This part was under refurbishment, so we only got a small glimpse into the factory where we got to see them assembling Mazda 3s.
The tour ended with some future design concept cars before letting us out into the gift shop. Overall, it was a good tour. Getting to drive through their headquarters, seeing their beginnings, the 787B were all highlights. I don’t know how often they change out cars, but I would’ve liked to have seen more.
It was almost time to call it a day in Hiroshima. There was a train station nearby so I didn’t have to attempt another bus, and that took me right to Hiroshima station.
I couldn’t leave without getting some okonomiyaki, since it’s a Hiroshima specialty. If you don’t know, okonomiyaki is a thin crepe topped with cabbage, noodles, usually pork, an egg; it’s all cooked on a flattop grill and then topped with okonomiyaki sauce. That’s the Hiroshima style; Osaka has a slightly different preparation. It’s so delicious and I’m annoyed because I’ve only found one restaurant that serves it in Arizona, and it’s a sometimes on the weekend thing. After dinner I took the shinkansen back to Nagoya so I could pack before heading out to Tokyo tomorrow.
Hiroshima was unforgettable and I’m happy I was able to add it to the trip. Outside of Tokyo, it was the city I wanted to visit most, I just wish I could’ve had more time to explore. With the travel time and the timing of the Mazda Museum I feel like I packed in a good number of things.