The Third Best View In Japan

This is a continuation of my diary from my RTW trip from November 2003.


For my second day in Hiroshima I had a trip to Miyazumi Island, which officially provides the third best view in Japan. The best two were north of Tokyo and not on my agenda... Next time perhaps.

The Japanese take their sight-seeing very seriously and rank everything.

I do wonder what places came fourth and fifth. It was a nice view – a temple gate seemingly floating in the water. The weather was sunny and it was a good excuse to get some fresh air as I sailed across the Inland Sea to get there. All in all a lovely afternoon.

On my return to Hiroshima city centre, I came across two totally unexpected things. First was yet another branch of Lush... "Lush, Chester, Colombo, Hiroshima" is certainly a different take on the 'Paris, Milan, New York' straplines you see for other cosmetic companies.

The second surprise was coming across the ceremony to turn on Hiroshimas’ Christmas tree lights. After some dull and lengthy speechifying from the local gerontocracy, I finally got to see what we had all come for. Namely a large group of 7 year olds dressed as angels singing Japanese carols out of tune as the lights flickered in synchronicity with the music. It was a relaxing way to spend my final afternoon in this country.

As befits Japan though, it wasn’t a real 30 foot Christmas tree, but a perfect cone representation of a tree. You just can’t trust those pesky branches to do as they’re told! Nor could you trust the children either. They were getting so fidgety as the speeches droned on that they kept hitting each other on the head with their star shaped balloons! And as for Santa... well for some reason he had chosen to come as a 10 foot high Blue bird who went around pecking everyone on the head... Oh the tradition!