Don't Mention the War...

This is the next post of our Japan trip.  It took place in September but I only managed to write these notes a couple of months later.  For contemporaneous reports, take a look at Track My Tour -- a brilliant app that I used to ... well, track our tour.  Here is the link.

We only planned to be in Hiroshima for a day, the main reason... actually sole reason being to watch a baseball match between the local Carps and the Dragons.

A month before had been the 70-year anniversary of the dropping of the first A-bomb in 1945 but none of us really wanted to visit anything that reminded us of something as ghastly as that.  Personally I think it was the right decision based on how many people died in Okinawa with the main island the next stop for landings.  Could have taken years and killed millions more.  So horrible as undoubtedly it was, it brought things to a dramatic crashing halt.  

Missed in all the talk of the horros of atomic weapons is the fact that as our holiday went along we realised more and more that every building was at most 60 or so years old.  Dating from the end of the war and the occupation in fact.  Everything else had been destroyed.  Remember I said that the O-torii Gate in Miyajima was wooden and therefore on version #38?  Well everything pre-war in Japan was also built in wood and with the night bombing focussing on incendiaries, you don't need to think too deeply to wonder why very few old buildings in Japanese cities survive.  We discovered in fact that the wonderful Horoshima Castle was in fact 20 or so years old as the old one was incinerated.

The only building that survived the A-bomb in 1945 is today in the Peace Park with a memorial to that awful occasion.

However the replacement architecture for the most part didn't harken back to the old days, rather it took the post-war London G-plan type build to extremes.  Actually pretty ugly with of course exceptions.  Hiroshima of course was flattened but being a major port had been bombed solidly before as well so all the buildings were of the newer... er, uglier type.  Except the train station.

We were staying at the railway hotel run by Sheraton which was really new, updated and absolutely splendid.  The station, as many country wide so we discovered, was under renovation, construction, whatever.  It was huge with a multi-storey department store inside and another across the street.  In Japan railway stations are THE central point of any city... because everyone uses the trains.  And boy are they clean, efficient and affordable.

Hiroshima

Stepping back from the bullet train (which comes tomorrow), transport in Japan seems great.  Indy told me it had got better (i.e. signs in English now) as a result of the football World Cup, before which no signs were in English.  But with a week rail pass and able to use everything from bullet train to local subway was a breeze.  The great thing is that the trains go everywhere, everyone uses them and did I say this already, they are very affordable.  It makes you wonder looking elsewhere when trains (in the UK for example) are so expensive and infrequent that if you build a lot, make them on time and clean, provide lots and lots of them AND make them affordable then people will use them.  Strange concept that others don't get.  They cut the service and put up the price so when people don't use them, they cut them again.  Makes no sense.  Anyway I am a HUGE fan of the Japanese train system and don't care who knows it!  If East Japan Railways needs an endorsement, sign me up.  As an aside I used to buy their Eurobonds in the past as they were AAA rated and always paid a little more coupon than some of their counterparts.

We traveled everywhere in Hiroshima on the smorgasbord of train offerings and found all of them excellent... even though it rained pretty solidly and had done so pretty much since we arrived in Japan... and tonight was the big game!

Zoom Zoom

Hiroshima is home of Mazda (zoom zoom) cars so the stadium is called Mazda Zoom Zoom Stadium!  Fortunately it was just a few minutes away from the hotel.  Cat had got tickets for Viv and I (who decided to attend late) apart from the rest of the party and provided us with home team ponchos to stay dry.  This turned out to be a bit of a problem as the tickets were in the opposing team, the Dragons, enclave and as soon as we arrived in bright red, one lady in particular came up to us saying we couldn't come in dressed like that.  She even went to get a policeman who confirmed this but really kindly when we pointed out that it was tipping down with rain gave us a couple of blue Dragons' ponchos including her own to wear.

However the rain lifted a few innings in ... and yes in Japan they play in all weather conditions ... and the night became clear and we settled in to enjoy the game which has a few local rules that I think enhance the event rather than anything else.

First are the bands.  Yes bands.  Each team has its own bands, its own songs and chants and its own band leaders.  Everyone sings, claps and howls along.  By the 8th innings, we were joining in.  However rather politely they take it in turns only playing when their side is batting so there really isn't much competition for who makes the most noise.  I thought the Dragons had the better songs, chants and moves for yes it also includes a form of in seat dancing with everyone moving in synchronicity.  You have to see it!

Instead of a 7th innings stretch there is a loosing of thousands of balloons, tonight red for the Carps and blue for the Dragons.  At the end of a particular song, everyone cheers and lets loose.  

However with all this mayhem going on, the game itself was a close run affair ending in a very polite draw at the end of the 12th innings.  Local rules say the bands must stop at 10 pm because of the noise to allow people to sleep ahead of work on the morrow, and the game stops at the end of the 12th innings so nobody gets home too late!

So it wasn't that late an affair leaving us plenty of time to find an Okonami restaurant, the local dish of choice which is a pancake with very Japanese toppings washed down with local beer and of course sake!  

When they ask what you'd like, you say "Everything"

What a night!

Happy Trails

Just back home to Bermuda and the hot, sticky weather my first thought after 2 months away was how old Bermuda looks.  Not surprising I suppose seeing as it was discovered in 1609 and being small has been built over for years now, so there's precious little leeway to build big, new things.  Or money at the moment anyway although I do hope that changes soon.

Looking back on our time away though, here are some thoughts:

Chicago

What a great City!

That's it.  Nothing else.  OK, one thing someone told me about was the Architectural Society's city tours and how good they were.  He was right.  And this really leads onto a theme running through the trip which is that exploring somewhere through history brings perspective and so much more enjoyment than simply rolling up and trying to get going.  My son, Ali, recently went to Paris for a friend's wedding and visited some of the museums there which he said he really enjoyed.  I found this pleasantly surprising as I thought the young today don't read that much (if its not on a digital device) and don't care much for history beyond the first 20 second sound byte.

Chicago Board of Trade's throne style art deco building

Museums

Many of the museums we visited had guided tours of displays, events and such like.  Do them.  These tours are provided for a reason.  They are interesting and informative.  If the guides are enthusiastic (and ours were), this translates into a wonderful experience which brings so much more to what you are looking at.

Warning: You are in danger of learning something…

In Montreal, for example, at the Pointe a Calliere Museum -- the museum of the city -- a temporary exhibit was of one district in the City just outside downtown.  I couldn't for the life of me understand why I'd care about some suburb but the tour convinced me otherwise and reminded me that everyone and everywhere has a story.  All you have to do is listen.

I now know for example why Montreal housing is built the way it is -- outside staircases because property tax at the time was calculated on living space, staircases being considered dead space were therefore built outside.  Made no sense of course as with the city being snowed in for 6 months of the year, these staircases were death traps!

Not many people know that.

Baseball

The 2 games we went to were brilliant but make me wonder why there are so many games in a season. 162 regular season games is a lot so teams have to have large rotating squads and make sure they win 52% of their games to make it to the play-offs.  (Watch the movie Moneyball to see what I mean). This means the game can be managed statistically; beat that team, rest the good guys for this other team…

Takes some of the immediacy out of things.  Had we realised the St. Louis game was the final one in a 3-game series against LA and they'd already won the first 2 games, we may not have spent the $100 per ticket to watch a game that was fairly low energy (and importance to St. Louis anyway).

I think this is likely the case with NBA and NHL too.

Bourbon

I was hoping I'd like Bourbon but even the smoothest drink felt like a dagger in the throat to me (just like Scotch too).  But when incorporated into a cocktail such as an Old Fashioned or a Manhattan… whoo-hoo!

Draw daggers…

Old Fashioned and Mint Julep… that's what I'm talking about!

Interestingly as a side comment the barman at our cocktail course said that Canadian Rye whisky is the most popular US drink so that now many US distillers make rye too.  This is permeating into Bourbon making as well where the area in which it was originally distilled (Bourbon county in Kentucky) was expanded to the point where it could be made anywhere in Kentucky and still be called bourbon, and then again further still so that bourbon can be made anywhere… and still be called bourbon.

This would never happen in the EU who make sure that you can only legally get Yorkshire Pudding in Yorkshire.  Mind you the French are highly guarded over Champagne and Cognac so maybe the EU learned it from them.

Movies

We like movies and when away take the chance of spending lengthy periods in the local Cineplex 24 or whatever the local name is.  If you plan properly, you could spend an entire day in one of these places moving from screening room to screening room -- our record was 4 in a day.  The challenge is to find movies you like in the right order.

The biggest irritant is going out to buy multiple tickets and makes me wonder why these multiplexes don't just sell a day pass, or a week pass for that matter.  Double or triple a single ticket and enable movie goers to stay and go as much as they want.  They'd buy stuff at the concessions and probably generate more revenue for the cinema and at the same time obviate the need to hire people to check for those who hop from screen to screen without buying new tickets.

Make the experience better for moviegoers in fact.

Service

We went out a lot in the last 2 months.  Pretty much across the board we found that service in bars, restaurants and hotels was excellent but stand out moment goes to the Toque Restaurant in Montreal (see link here).

We were recommended this as being one of the best restaurants in Montreal and expecting it would be French-ish, we went.  Montreal isn't as French as I thought it would be nor was Toque.  It was new, elegant and had some French components to it but it was new American… and very nice too.  I'd ordered a bottle of red wine I thought would be nice and while drinkable it wasn't great and for some reason I mentioned this to the sommelier when he asked.

He apologised and asked if he could change it for us.

I hadn't expected this as it was my poor choice in the first place that I was happy to live with.  I certainly didn't ask him to change it.  He offered.

He also said let him choose a wine he thought we'd like… and he did.  And we did.  And it turned out to be a Serbian cabernet.  Very nice it was too.  The sommelier said he didn't want to tell us first as we'd never have agreed to try it.  He was right, we wouldn't.  I wish I'd made a note of the name as it actually was lovely.

As was dinner and the stunningly unexpected service level.

Luggage

We made some very poor choices regarding luggage in our trip earlier in the year and had cut things down to just the 3 bags … from 6.  Progress certainly but still not perfection.

What were we thinking?

Travelling these days with luggage is a real pain.  Virtually all airlines now charge for luggage -- AA I think was the hold out in the US but they gave up in April when they merged with US Airlines.  Yet another added cost on top of the quoted fare.  Security and Immigration controls are also a pain.  If the US ever increases its Amtrak routing, I'd consider trains more.  No immigration, no travel to/from the airport, no security… sounds wonderful.

Or we could just go tubing…

Take me out to the ballgame...

For all their modernity and the fact that most say they don't relate to history and what came before, the Americans really do.  They love memorials, remembrances of things and times past (think Jamestown) and of course they love their traditional sports which is completely encompassed by their passion for baseball.

Ridiculous of course.  The game makes no sense at all.  You could go an entire game with no runs at all if the pitchers are on form.  And to think they laugh at cricket where you could go for 5 days and get a draw!  Well you could do the same at baseball and still be at 0-0.

Wrigleyville outside the stadium

I am impressed with the fielding though.  Those guys are fit, great catchers and they can throw the ball like nobody's business.

The batters I think have the raw deal.  They have a round bat to start with which shatters on almost any random occasion when ball very rarely makes contact with bat.  They have to stand (and not move their feet) when someone 30 yards away hurls the ball at him (aka his head) at something over 100 mph.  They aren't allowed to play and miss more than 3 times.  They aren't allowed to wait and see ... again for more than 3 times.  They can't have a thrash and get an outside edge ... you guessed it more than 3 times.  In short they have to get things together very quickly and then hit the ball in the middle of the bat and send it 400 feet into the crowd otherwise the out fielders pick them off.

Unsurprising when you look at their statistics... and yes the crowd does really follow all this very closely.  Our near neighbor followed every pitch and kept detailed statistics for every Cubs player (she said she does this on the TV at home too).  Talk about dedicated!  Her son, a spotty teenager even went and got autographs.  Who does that these days?

But we wanted to watch a Cubs game.  They aren't that good but they are one of the old teams and still have their old ground.  They last won the World Series in 1908 so haven't tasted success for years.  My neighbour said they are 'still rebuilding'.

Check out the ivy covered walls

The ground still has ivy covered walls with a local rule that if the ball gets caught in the ivy (meaning the out fielder can't get it out and throw it back), there's an automatic double -- translation:  the batter gets to go to 2nd base without fear of being thrown out.  Nice tradition.  I tried explaining the oak tree within the boundary counting 5 at Canterbury to my neighbour but don't think she completely got what I was trying to tell her.

However scandal abounds as the Cubs announced that particular day that they wanted to modernize the stadium to add new towers etc.  Their neighbors in Wrigleyville (its called Wrigley Field after their owners the chewing gum people) have built structures on top of their houses which they rent out to fans who can't get tickets in the ground.  These are very solid and high structures and the houses pay 17% of their takings already to the Cubs and have told them they will sue if the plans go ahead.

The amazing structure overlooking Wrigley Field

A solution is being sought!

But the game was fun.  The Cubs sprang into a 2-0 lead and the gradually gave it all back until the 3rd or 4th innings when the collapse happened.

It was the key man, the pitcher.  He can win a game or lose it and the pressure on him must be immense.  Particularly when he has thrown 2 strikes and 3 balls on 2 consecutive occasions to batters who he has then walked and is faced with a 3rd occasion with the same count.  Made me think of my softball days when on one memorable occasion the captain/pitcher walked 7 consecutive batters in the same way and in the course of 1 innings went through the entire batting line up one and a half times. We lost that game by the mercy rule and I think the captain never played again.

Well the pitcher walked that 3rd batter and of course the worst thing possible then happened and by the time everyone drew breath, the Atlanta Braves had racked up 6 runs in just that one innings.  The pitcher was relieved (but none after were much better) and the Cubs ended up losing 11-6.

We went by subway.  It took 15 minutes there as we didn't know the way and 10 minutes back.  Brilliant!

And getting back to my original point about tradition, why is there a 7th innings stretch and a rendition of "Take me out to the Ball Park" on a wurlitzer that everyone in the park sings along to with immense fervor?

Well I don't know for sure, but I like it!