First Impression of Japan - by Jon Turner from UK

Soo very clean. Not seen a single piece of litter.

The trains run on time and there is lots of space even in standard class. More legroom than first class on UK trains. The trains have heated toilet seats and a bidet.

Many women in Morioka walk with their feet turned inwards

English is not widely spoken in Morioka.

There are many Italian restaurants in Morioka - we passed 7-8. No cuisine, other than Japanese, comes close.

Face masks can be seen quite frequently on people walking around

At road crossings not only is there a green man illuminated but also accompanied by different bird sounds, e.g. Cuckoo, owl, nightingale....

A nice alternative to sugar is gum syrup.

When travelling on trains the guards and catering staff turn and bow as they leave each carriage.

Our double room in the R&B hotel Morioka did have a double bed in it but there was little else as there was no room. The bathroom was smaller than the wardrobe in our bedroom at home. In the bathroom it was possible to sit on the toilet and use the sink and the shower without getting up.

The centre of Miyako was devastated by the tsunami in 2011. Many of the buildings have been replaced or repaired, however the local town planners seem to have got carried away with approving planning applications for hair dressers. These appear to outnumber restaurants, hotels and even shops. It's fair to say that the two main industries in Miyako are fishing closely followed by hair cutting.

Miyako is trying to lure tourists to the area to see the aftermath of the tsunami and the reconstruction efforts. Pretty impressive stuff but the local authorities haven't yet mastered the tourist information game. On arrival at Miyako station a 'tourist information' type office is right next door. After a few minutes of explaining we were looking for tourist information the helpful assistant seated behind a large desk directed us across the road to a similar looking office at the bus station. We duly went over and asked the same questions where upon a similar lady sat behind a large desk directed us back over to the office we had just come from. This could've gone all day so we worked out the approximate direction of the harbour and just started walking.

Most locations would have a number of coffee shops except Miyako. We did find a bakery that had a sign outside also saying cafe but on enquiring discovered this was a ruse to get people to buy cakes and eat them on the street outside. In the one department store in town there is a coffee area with one table. We ordered a coffee which seems to be a bit of an event as it created a lot of activity behind the counter with a coffee machine that does not appear to have been used in the last two years. Since the tsunami the art of coffee making clearly was one of the professions that suffered as the coffee eventually served was more coffee coloured than coffee tasting.

I have been reluctant to comment on the Japanese rail system as I had only had very limited exposure. However, now that I've travelled the length of Japan on Shinkansen, local and metro trains in different cities, I feel I'm more in a position to make some observations.

I have travelled on trains in UK, Rest of Europe, USA, India, China, Vietnam and probably other locations I've forgotten about. The JR trains are by far and away the best for so many reasons. Firstly, the trains run on time. Of the ten, or so, journeys I have taken, none have departed late. The trains, stations and toilets are spotless. So much so I have not seen one piece of litter on a train or at a station. The stations are not grubby and do not smell like train stations as I know them. Even standard class of trains have enough legroom to accommodate very tall people which is strange as the average height of Japanese people must be, somewhat, lower than in the West. The Shinkansen trains are fast, faster than any trains I can remember, but are so quiet, there is not even noise from the wheels as they go over joints in the tracks. The trains are quiet, people are asked to use their mobiles in the corridors connecting carriages and this is what they do. The seats recline quite a distance meaning sleeping is easier, especially as it is quiet too and because the gaps between the seats is large even when the seats are reclined they are not in the lap of the person sat behind. The employees walk along the carriages quietly and bow as they leave. When the refreshment trolley moves through the carriage the steward speaks very quietly to not disturb the passengers. A reservation on the train means that your seat will be free when you get on the train and there won't be the need to ask someone to move. If Carlsberg were to make a railway system................

One of the places I was keen to visit on this journey was Hiroshima. The Peace Park comprising of memorials, a museum, cenotaph, a Buddhist bell to release the souls of the dead and an eternal flame is a Mecca for Japanese school children, who all appear to be visiting at the same time, other Japanese and international tourists.

The layout of the park is vey reverential and fitting to the 140 000 or so who died in the atomic bomb on 6th August 1945. The cenotaph lines up with the eternal flame, which will only be extinguished when all nuclear weapons are removed from the worlds armies, and the 'A-Dome', one of the very few buildings that remained partially standing after the explosion and now has been preserved as a UN heritage site for peace.

The park sits on an island in the centre of town and the bridges, in the shape of a 'T' connecting the northern part of the island to the rest of Hiroshima are significant as this was the aiming point for the US B29 bomber, Enola Gay, to drop the bomb on. 

The museum is a very busy place with many school children visiting. On my visit there were hundreds both on the island and in the museum. It appears to be an important school trip for the children of Japan.

The museum does a great job of describing the attack and the aftermath of the suffering of the people and their struggles to survive and rebuild their city and lives. The personal stories of death from the blast or subsequently from injuries, radiation or the longer term effects of the bombing, leukaemia, other cancers, birth defects, among them, are heart wrenching. Sakado survived the initial blast as a young girl but when she was 14 in 1955 contracted leukaemia. She believed that folding a 1000 paper cranes would bring her good luck and she would survive. She and her friends diligently did this but before she completed her task she died. A number of her folded paper cranes are on display. There are pictures and videos of the devastation, which are utterly shocking in the magnitude of the destruction. No wooden building within 1km of the centre point of the bombing remained standing and over 90% of all other buildings were either completely destroyed or very badly damaged. What these figures don't tell you is that practically all of the population in Hiroshima lived in wooden houses. 

The initial explosion released a firestorm at temperatures of close to 5000degrees, vaporising anybody close to the epicentre. All that remains of some of those people is a carbon shadow imprinted onto one of the, very few, concrete buildings which, in part, withstood the blast. The artefacts on display demonstrate how powerful the blast was. Solid glass bottles, roof tiles, china bowls melted due to the heat generated by the blast. Being able to touch these and feel how solid they are is in stark contrast to most peoples experiences of items melting. 

Where the museum seems less powerful is in its depiction of the build up to the bombing. The history section is weak on Japanese accountability, for example, the rape of Nanking, is mentioned though the death toll of Chinese citizens is disputed and the photos accompanying this section show a parade in Hiroshima celebrating the capture and also urns of dead Japanese soldiers being repatriated. This sits very uneasily with me. Many scholars believe close to 300 000 innocent people were murdered by the Japanese in Nanking which is more than double the amount who died in Hiroshima. To have depict this in the way the Hiroshima peace museum does effectively glosses over Japan's accountability for this war crime.

Memo - brands to buy

Spagetti:
Very easy and simple to make: boil the noodle Barilla Spaghetti n.5 for 8 minutes, boil oil with garlic, then put the Barilla sauce Napoletana in, then mix with spaghetti. Done.