Day 11 - Hiroshima, Kansai

A washlet

Last day in Japan. In the morning we went shopping for clothes and a toilet seat. Frances was fascinated by the electronic toilet seats (Washlet) which did about everything except make a pot of tea. They could provide you with a complete toilet experience, but eventually we found that the wiring and plumbing required woul make one difficult to install in Australia.

We were so impressed by the 11th floor food court of Fukuya Departo the night before that we went there for lunch - excellent food and views over Hiroshima.

Part of the Astroboy display in the
Manga Library

In the remaining time we decided to visit some galleries. First we went to the Manga Library which had a special display of Astroboy (Tetsuwan Atomu) As a manga and anime fan, I found this just fantastic. Manga (Japanese comics) are written for boys, girls, men and women in Japan and its not uncommon to see adults reading them on public transport. They are generally paperback size and a typical monthly issue has about 200 pages.

Frances feeding the bomb-eating teddy

The 'faces' could be swung in multiple
directions

Our final visit was to the Contemporary Art Gallery, which coincidentally had an exhibition of new work by Hiroshima artists. The work was varied, much of it interactive, and some had references to the dropping of the atomic bomb. For example one huge sculpture consisted of a conveyor belt on which delivered bombs into the mouth of a giant stuffed toy that made a horrendous noise when they dropped.

In the afternoon, we caught the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) again to Osaka where we changed to the Rapid (nowhere near as fast as the Shinkansen) to Kansai airport. We had dinner there and spent the last of our Yen while waiting to board the plane for the return home.