Hiroshima and Miyajima

Today we did a few sights that we felt was important here in Hiroshima area. We had to visit the Peace Memorial Park and the A-Bomb Dome. The last serving as a reminder of the awful event that happened here in 1945 when the USA dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima and killed more than 200 000 people. We hope that the visit will give the kids a perspective on nuclear weapons.

Miyajima on the other hand was a nice place to do some sightseeing. We had close encounters with the local "wild" life as we began walking towards the floating torii, local shrines and temples. There were lots of signs warning us to not touch the deer. We thought that _if_ we did see any we would not go after it and touch it. We ended up seeing at least 10 of them and they were more interested in what we might have in our pockets than we were of touching them. They seemed to be very used to people and had no problems with following you around during your trip to the shrines.

When walking around in the unfinished building of Hokoku Shrine, also known as Senjokaku (hall of thousand tatami mats) I could not stop thinking of how it would be to train aikido in a building like this. It would be a great experience and the atmosphere it would create would really inspire people to enjoy practicing aikido. Imagine that this building was intended for buddhist chanting every month to console the souls of the dead in the war. It was ordered built in 1587 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, but was not finished due to his death.

Tomorrow we travel back to Fukuoka and I can finally get back to some aikido practice! I really miss the training and I feel that all I have done the last two weeks have been eating and walking between looking at shrines and animals. And by the way if you wanted to know the japanese word for training it is "keiko" 稽古