An Italian Adventure: Lake Como, Milan, and Verona

Posted on April 27, 2025 by patsypridgen

I’m back from my third visit to Italy, my favorite European country. The ten-day Uniworld trip began in Milan and ended in Venice, with detours to Lake Como, Verona, and a few of the islands surrounding Venice.

Lake Como
Shopping Mall in Milan

Before any serious touring could begin, though, an Italian dinner was required. The fresh tomatoes and mozzarella on this salad were as delicious as they look, and no one can cook pasta like the Italians. Can you see why I love this country?

The group I travel with always likes to leave a day early to allow for possible airline snafus. This time we had no flight delays and used our extra day to visit Lake Como and a couple of surrounding towns located in the northern part of Italy near the Swiss border.

We boarded a train from Milan, and in an hour or so, we got off in a little town called Varenna on the shores of Lake Como. Here, we climbed a million steps to reach a medieval castle (Castello di Vezio), where we were rewarded for our efforts with a panoramic view of the lake. The snow-covered mountains are the Italian Alps.

Bellagio was the second town we explored on Lake Como. With its winding, hilly streets, it’s a charming place to visit, making it possibly the most popular tourist destination on Lake Como. These crowds, here in the shoulder season of mid-April, are evidence of that. Imagine what this street must look like in summer at the height of tourist season.

My husband, a better photographer than I, did manage to capture one relatively quiet lane in this pretty town.

Part of the fun of visiting Lake Como, of course, was being on the lake itself. We traveled between Varenna and Bellagio on a local ferry.

After a day on our own touring the Lake Como area, we joined our Uniworld group back in Milan. Our first guided excursion was what brought me to this city: a viewing of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

Contrary to what I’d always thought, this work is not a framed painting but rather a mural painted on a wall in what was the dining room in the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent in Milan. It’s huge, measuring 15 feet tall and 29 feet wide.

My husband’s photo here captures the sparsity of the room. To ensure the mural is maintained at room temperature, only 25 people are allowed to enter at 15-minute intervals. We were shooed out after our allotted time.

It’s hard to believe today, but The Last Supper was not always a revered work of art. Residents of the monastery cut a new door in the wall, removing the portion of the fresco showing the feet of Jesus. Napoleon’s troops turned the area into a stable and used the wall for target practice. In 1943, during World War II, bombs tore the roof off the room, leaving the paint exposed.

Still, the power of Leonardo da Vinci’s work remains in the story he so masterfully depicts. Jesus and his disciples have gathered in the Upper Room for the Jewish Passover Feast. He has just revealed that one of the twelve will betray him. Astonishment and dismay are expressed by all, including the traitor, Judas Iscariot.

Though seeing The Last Supper was the main attraction for me in Milan, there were other interesting sights. With its intricate, pointed spires, Il Duomo, the Milan Cathedral, is the largest gothic-style church in the world. Construction began in 1386 and took nearly six centuries to complete. Judging by the scaffolding on the roof, I’m not sure the work is finished.

The cathedral has 3,400 statues, 135 gargoyles, and 700 figures.

Before going inside, our group climbed to the top for an arial view of a busy Milan street.

Inside, the stained glass windows were dazzling.

To me, the most interesting interior feature of the Milan Cathedral is a spot in the dome above the apse, marked by a red light. One of the three nails from the crucifixion of Christ is believed to be stored here. The story is that the nail was brought from Palestine by St. Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine, around 330 AD.

I think it’s safe to say we have nothing like this in America.

Milan is known as a fashion capital and boasts what is probably the most exclusive indoor mall in Europe, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Built between 1865 and 1877, the mall is shaped like a Latin cross and is covered by a glass and iron dome.

Unlike many American malls, this one is bustling with activity, although for me, such high-end stores as Prada, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton were for window-shopping only.

After a couple of days, we said goodbye to Milan with its prevalence of motor bikes and big-city feel.

On the way to Venice, where we would board the ship for our Uniworld cruise, we stopped in Verona for a morning tour in the rain. The umbrellas match because they were supplied by our tour sponsor.

If you remember your Shakespeare, then you know that Verona is famous for being the setting of Romeo and Juliet. Despite the fact that this is a fictional play, the city has designated a Juliet balcony with a statue of the star-crossed lover nearby.

A random tourist strikes a pensive Juliet pose, don’t you think? (“O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou, Romeo?”)

Verona has more to offer than just the Shakespeare bit. The Verona Arena, a Roman amphitheater built in the 1st century, is well-preserved. With a seating capacity of 30,000, this open-air amphitheater is used today for large opera performances.

Impressive. I felt as though I were back at the Colosseum in Rome.

After leaving Verona, the rain stopped and we enjoyed lunch at a wine estate called Serego Alighieri in the Valpolicella wine region. Ah, the Italian lifestyle.

After lunch, it was nap time on the bus as we rode to Venice, the subject of my next post.

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From Country to Suburbs to City to Country

Posted on March 16, 2025 by patsypridgen

My twin baby granddaughters have become apartment dwellers. I’m talking 18th floor in a recently constructed, uptown Charlotte high rise. It makes me dizzy to look out the window when I visit.

This choice of a place to call home, even temporarily, has me thinking about where all three of my daughters live. They grew up in a brick Cape Cod in a suburb of sorts, a neighborhood called Northgreen. We lived on a cul-de-sac. There was a country club pool, tennis courts, and a golf course. They could walk to friends’ houses and ride their bikes. It was a wonderful life. They had a great childhood.

But strangely enough, not one of the three, now married and with children of their own, lives in a neighborhood like the one where they grew up. My oldest daughter chose country living. She has a house with a pond behind it instead of a golf course, and her family goes for walks on country roads rather than suburban streets. She can see tractors in the fields near her house.

It’s beautiful out in the country. And so quiet. There are neighbors nearby, but not what I’d call next door. Everybody has a few acres.

My other two daughters have gone in a totally different direction in choosing where to call home. They both live in Charlotte, the largest city in the state. My middle daughter resides in a 1920s renovated bungalow in the Dilworth neighborhood.

Back in the day of trolley cars, this area was considered a suburb of Charlotte. With the growth of the city, Dilworth today is valued for its proximity to uptown. My daughter and her family walk to the local park and restaurants. The daycare is just down the street at the Methodist church. My son-in-law often rides his bike to his uptown job at a skyscraper bank. The house next door is only a few feet away. City life.

My youngest daughter, currently the apartment dweller, has a house two blocks away from her sister’s. The 1910 Victorian she and her husband bought six months ago is in the process of being approved by the historic commission for renovation. It will be a huge project, but like her sister, this daughter loves an old home. She’s willing to spend a couple of years in an apartment while the house undergoes all sorts of repairs and possibly an addition.

I can trace these two daughters’ love of old houses back to me. I’ve always wanted to buy an old home and fix it up but never saw the opportunity. Now I feel I’m too old. Huge renovation projects take energy. Still, I can live vicariously through these city girls with their historic homes.

As for my oldest daughter, country living also hearkens back to me. I grew up in a brick ranch on sixteen acres of mostly woodland out in Edgecombe County. The view outside those windows in that knotty pine den is fuzzy, but I can tell you it was a backyard with a clothesline and farther out, a big garden. It certainly wasn’t a city skyline. By the way, that’s my handsome daddy with our dog Duchess many, many years ago.

If you have adult children, have they chosen a different type of place to live than where they grew up? Mine sure have. But come to think of it, I did too. I’ve never returned to country living.

I will leave you as I began, with the tiny apartment dwellers, who are currently practicing their crawling in the long hallways on the 18th floor…or gazing at the Charlotte skyline.

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Cutting the Cable Cord, Playing Mah-Jongg, and Appreciating Winter

Posted on February 6, 2025 by patsypridgen

It seems we cut the cable cord just in time. Look how much my Optimum bill went up because some “promotional rate” I didn’t even know I had has “ended.” Thankfully, we should be refunded part of this bill since we’ve now parted ways with the cable.

When Optimum, without any warning, canceled my CBS station the other week, that was the last straw. My husband and I had talked about divorcing the cable company for quite a while, and the days I went without CBS provided the impetus we needed. I’d never forgiven Optimum for eliminating Channel 9 a few years ago. No more Greenville news and ECU sports with Brian Bailey.

Oh, I had a long list of grievances with the cable company. Ever increasing rates (cable creep, it’s called), poor customer service, the above-mentioned arbitrary canceling of my favorite stations.

I was also sick of my telemarketer-plagued landline. Doing away with cable meant I would no longer have the phone package that always seemed to be thrown in as part of the deal. I have now unplugged every landline in my house and will bury them in the electronics graveyard in the attic.

Good-bye to annoying telemarketers, at least until they find me on my cell phone.

Firing Optimum cable doesn’t mean I’ve gone off the grid, though. At my house, we now have YouTube TV, and so far, I’m loving it.

I call it TV for electronics dummies. People like me, who for years have been baffled by how to even turn on the daggone television. Now it’s no more multiple remotes and making sure the cable box is activated as well as the television. No more switching back and forth between something called HDM1 and HDM2. All that jazz that I struggled to remember and often had to call in tech support, my husband, to do for me.

Today, I’m down to a sweet little firestick with only a few options that even a tech-challenged Baby Boomer grandma like me can easily master. Look how streamlined this gadget is.

You Tube TV is not the only new entertainment in my life. Back in the fall, I learned to play Mah Jongg. Oh my goodness! Y’all, I’m in love with this tile game. I’ve never been a card player–don’t know a thing about bridge–but I’m under the Mah Jongg spell.

I know this Mah Jongg card looks complicated, but the game really isn’t all that difficult. Part of winning is strategy, and part is luck (jokers are involved). I play online and also with a group of ladies one morning most weeks. It’s time off I give myself to do nothing but have fun.

We’ve had some really cold temperatures, at least by eastern North Carolina standards. It could be the winter of our discontent, or we can look outside and appreciate the season. A beautiful January sunrise caught my eye at Emerald Isle.

This scene in the North Carolina mountains reminds me of the Robert Frost poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

And the budding daffodils show me that spring isn’t far away… or that my annual battle with rabbits that want to snip off my flowers is starting.

That daffodil on the ground was detached from a stem above it. The one that looks snipped. Look for it. Aaargh!

Crazy rabbits, crazy world–there’s still much to appreciate even in the dead of winter.

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A St. Augustine New Year

Posted on January 6, 2025 by patsypridgen

The dawn of a new year reminds me that I’ve taken another trip around the sun. However, help for this old lady is on the way. Like Ponce de Leon, I went searching for the Fountain of Youth. What the explorer stumbled upon in 1513 is today Florida’s oldest tourist attraction.

Legend has it that drinking the water here restores youth and vitality. I took a sip or two of the not very tasty, sulphur-flavored liquid. It’s now been several days and, unfortunately, I can’t say I feel younger or more energetic, but if anything significant occurs, I’ll be sure to let everyone know.

St. Augustine was a fun New Year’s getaway location. There’s lots to see and do. Besides the Fountain of Youth, the crowd I was with visited the St. Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum. Here, Blackbeard’s “head” is appropriately featured, the cause of his death being decapitation during a battle with the Royal Navy in Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina.

Another item of interest in the Pirate Museum is the “World’s Only Surviving Pirate Treasure Chest.” It once belonged to Thomas Tew, who made a name for himself plundering ships loaded with jewels, ivory, and silk.

In keeping with a criminal theme, my fellow travelers and I also visited the Old Jail in St. Augustine. The road gang concrete statues along the highway beside the museum are a reminder of how prisoners were expected to earn their keep in the overcrowded, primitive jail.

The St. Augustine trolley carried our group from one attraction to another, with a driver narrating the history of the city. With a two-day pass, we rode one entire 90-minute loop the first time to get an overview of what there is to see in the city.

Our trolley took us down Magnolia Street. With its huge oak trees draped in Spanish moss, this street is considered one of the most beautiful in America.

The Cathedral of St. Augustine, completed in 1793, is another lovely attraction. The intricate murals here reminded me of those in grand European cathedrals.

A bonus for us was to see the cathedral decorated for Christmas, complete with a creche.

St. Augustine celebrates the holiday season with a festival that runs from late November through most of January called the Nights of Lights. Approximately three million white lights are strung on old buildings and landmarks. This tree in the Plaza de la Constitucion, the oldest public space in America, is just one example of the white lights we saw twinkling along several streets.

St. Augustine promotes itself as the oldest city in America. What about Jamestown, I wondered, or Plymouth Rock? Well, it seems the Spanish put down roots in what is today the United States before the English. This marker designates the vicinity where Ponce de Leon landed in 1513, searching for that fountain of youth among other things. He named the land Florida, which in Spanish means “flowery.”

It was actually a few more years, though, in 1565, when the town of St. Augustine was founded by a Spaniard named Pedro Menendez. On this same date, a Catholic priest held up a cross and celebrated the first parish Mass.

Afterwards, the Spanish settlers and the native tribe, the Timucuans, held a thanksgiving meal together. St. Augustine citizens, proud of their city’s history, like to note this first Thanksgiving was 55 years before the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth Rock.

The Seminoles are the Native American tribe I think of connected to Florida. I’d never heard of the Timucuans until this trip to St. Augustine. Our trolley driver told us there are still businesses in town that are owned by proud descendants of this native tribe. Their influence in helping the early settlers establish St. Augustine is acknowledged at various sites.

It was a quick, five-day excursion to St. Augustine, which isn’t too hard to drive from eastern North Carolina if the traffic behaves on I-95. Combining a celebration of the new year with a tour of such a historical city was both fun and educational, my favorite kind of trip.

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Highlights of Japan: Nagasaki

Posted on November 24, 2024 by patsypridgen

The final full day of our tour of Japan was in Nagasaki. Before we visited the somber sites of the atomic bombing of this city, we took a cable car to Mount Inasa for a panoramic view of the city.

That’s our ship in the picture (beside my husband’s shoulder) in the Port of Nagasaki. It was worth the five-minute ride on the hot, crowded ropeway (what the Japanese call a cable car) to get a view of the mountains and coastline here.

Most of our time in Nagasaki was spent touring the area where the second atomic bomb detonated near the end of World War II on August 9, 1945. The Peace Memorial Park was constructed here in 1955, ten years after the atomic explosion, and contains quite a few statues to commemorate the victims of the bomb and promote world peace.

Probably the most famous is the Prayer Monument for Peace. This large bronze statue dominates the park. The statue’s right hand pointing up symbolizes the threat of the atomic bomb. The left hand stretched horizontally is asking for peace. The closed eyes are in prayer for the victims of war.

The Nagasaki Bell was erected to mark the city as the last to be hit by an atomic bomb. A sign there says “…we pray that peace will spread throughout the world in concentric circles from our city with the ringing of the Nagasaki Bell….” The bell is also a tribute to students who perished from the blast as they worked in Nagasaki factories, taking the places of men who were away at war.

When the atomic bomb exploded, thousands of Nagasaki residents suffered horrific burns and died begging for water. The Fountain of Peace is dedicated as an offering of water to these victims. It’s interesting to see that the fountain sprays are in the shape of a pair of wings, symbolizing the dove of peace.

The bomb detonated approximately 1,600 feet above this monolith, which was constructed to mark the spot. Out of the city’s population of about 240,000 at the time, 73,884 were killed and 74,909 injured. Others died later from radiation poisoning. The black box in front of the monolith contains the names of those who perished as a result of the atomic bomb.

The Urakami Cathedral, the largest Christian church in East Asia at the time, was leveled by the blast. The church’s twin 85-feet high spires were blown down but reconstructed as a testimony of survival.

A branch of the Nagasaki Prison was the closest public building to the hypocenter. The prison was leveled and inmates and staff perished. Traces of the foundation are all that remain today.

Air raid shelters near Ground Zero offered a little protection. While most people within three-tenths of a mile of the hypocenter died instantly, some of those inside these shelters survived the initial blast. After the war, the US military studied the construction of the shelters and the locations of the survivors and the dead. This information was believed to have been gathered for the possible building of nuclear shelters for future wars.

A statue of a mother and her dying baby outside the Nagasaki Museum has a plaque noting the time and date of the atomic bomb explosion.

The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum was similar to the one in Hiroshima. Again, there was a clock stopped at the exact moment of the detonation of the bomb, this time 11:02.

The chronology of events leading up to the use of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki is chilling. I didn’t know Nagasaki was actually the back-up target that day. If only the clouds hadn’t cleared, the city might have been spared.

I found it interesting that the Japanese give a different reason for the necessity of using atomic bombs at the end of World War II. This is part of a display in the museum:

“It is said that the atomic bombs were used to hasten the end of World War II.” (Okay, that’s what I’d always thought.) “But another purpose was to display the success of the Manhattan Project, into which two billion dollars had been invested. The atomic bombings were also the first strategic move in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.”

Wow, the US used the bombs because we’d spent so much money developing them, and we wanted to show Russia how tough we could be?

One reason we travel is to broaden our minds, and though I might not totally agree with the words posted in the Nagasaki Peace Museum, I can respect that point of view.

The Japanese may have once been our enemies, but there was nothing but goodwill as these youngsters gathered to bid us farewell when our boat left the harbor of Nagasaki.

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Highlights of Japan: Fukuoka

Posted on November 15, 2024 by patsypridgen

After our one stop in South Korea, it was back to Japan with its shrines and gardens. I had never heard of Fukuoka, our next port of call, but the city did feature a memorable Shinto shrine. A nice young man from Australia snapped a picture of my husband and me in the entrance of the Kushida Shrine.

Outside the entrance to the shrine is a huge ginkgo tree. Locals claim it is 1,000 years old and see it as a holy tree of longevity. The tree is over 108 feet (tall for Japan) and was designated a cultural asset of Fukuoka in 1954.

The Kushida Shrine is surrounded by a busy city center, but all is serene inside the gate. A purification station at the entrance is for those who wish to wash their hands and mouth to purify the body before venturing further into the shrine.

Many of the features of the Kushida Shrine were similar to what we’d seen at other Shinto shrines where nature, rather than Buddha, is revered.

The red torii gate, I remembered, marked the transition from the everyday world to the spiritual. There were also the wooden plaques, which I’d noticed in other shrines, containing the prayers and wishes of worshippers.

As we’d seen before, Shinto believers were bowing to pray.

The architecture and religious artifacts were more elaborate, though, at the Kushida Shrine.

The Chinese zodiac disc beside the entrance was one feature we hadn’t seen in another shrine. Look closely to see pictures of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac and the four cardinal directions. The arrow in the center shows the lucky direction of the year…if you can figure that out.

A unique feature of the Kushida Shrine is that it is the starting point of a summer festival parade and houses one of the two floats that is not dismantled after the festival ends. This float is a pretty elaborate construction, I think, one that rivals those we see at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

After the Kushida Shrine, we visited a museum across the street where we saw a film about the Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival, the summer festival which features floats such as the one kept at the Kushida Shrine.

Outside the museum, Japanese schoolchildren on yet another field trip were lined up. If you’ve read my previous posts, you may remember I’ve commented on how often we bumped into groups of school kids out and about. Evidently field trips are seen as a valuable educational experience in Japan.

Some of this crowd waved at us while others practiced their English, which seemed to consist of only two words, “hello” and “goodbye” followed by giggles.

Of course, they know more English than I do Japanese. I couldn’t decipher a single letter of the assignment this child was working on in the museum.

Our final stop in Fukuoka was the tranquil Yusentei Park, built in 1754 as a resort for the sixth lord of the Kuroda Clan (in case you’re a scholar of Japanese history). The park/garden was shady and easy to navigate in a half hour or so.

As in many other Japanese gardens, there were pine trees and koi.

I did have a few minutes at the garden to sit on a tatami mat in the teahouse, after taking off my shoes, of course. This is only one of several pictures my husband took of me lounging here. Evidently, he thought my attempt to relax as the Japanese do was pretty funny. Incidentally, the fan I have is not just for show. It was hot, just like almost every day we were in Japan.

After visiting Fukuoka, a city I’d never heard of, our last port of call was a name that is quite familiar: Nagasaki, the location of the dropping of the second atomic bomb in World War II. My next post will cover this excursion.

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Highlights of Busan, Korea

Posted on November 5, 2024 by patsypridgen

My husband and I got a break from Japanese temples, shrines, and gardens during our one-day visit to Busan, Korea, where part of the tour featured the famous Jagalchi Fish Market. Do you think the bench by the door of the market was designed for men waiting for their wives buying seafood inside?

As for us, we were strictly window shopping as we walked up and down the aisles of the fish market. After all, what would we do with fresh seafood on a cruise ship? Not that I saw anything all that tempting. In fact, I didn’t recognize a lot of what was for sale. Some type of crab in the picture below?

I did find it interesting that many stalls of the Jagalchi Fish Market, the largest in the country, are operated by women. The tradition began during the Korean War, when husbands were off fighting, requiring wives to earn a living for the family.

Near the Jagalchi Fish Market is the Gukje (International) Market, which started operating in 1950 during the Korean War as a place for war refugees to make a living. Since Busan is Korea’s largest port city, the market imported military supplies for the U.S. armies, which is why the market was named Gukje, Korean for international.

The market provided an opportunity for a little bit of souvenir shopping. (You can see how excited my husband is by shopping excursions. He’s the guy in the pink shirt gazing at the sky.)

I say a little bit of souvenir shopping because a majority of what was sold were household and everyday clothing items, not the sort of keepsake a tourist wants. I did manage to buy a souvenir magnet to add to my collection.

I passed on the food for sale in a stall at the market, though it looked to be a healthy lunch option.

I haven’t gone in chronological order in describing our day in Busan but saved the most significant highlight of the day, actually our first stop, to talk about last. The United Nations Memorial Cemetery, the only UN memorial cemetery in the world, is the sacred, final resting place of UN Forces who served during the Korean War.

Over 2,300 casualties from thirteen countries are interred in the cemetery. Flags from all these different countries are displayed at the cemetery. I appreciated that our Korean guide for the day thanked our group, mostly made up of Americans, for coming to the aid of South Korea in the Korean War.

The United Nations flag is raised each day at 10 a.m. and lowered at 4 p.m. We were there to witness the solemn morning ceremony.

Our ship was docked in the harbor, waiting for us as we returned from our excursion. The Celebrity Millennium would take us back to Japan for the final days of our tour.

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Highlights of Japan: Hiroshima

Posted on October 25, 2024 by patsypridgen

The day we spent in Hiroshima was hot and sobering. The heat wave continued, and aside from a short visit to yet another garden, our tour was solely focused on the history for which this city will forever be remembered: the dropping of the first atomic bomb on August 6, 1945.

The 400-year-old Shukkeien Garden (translation: Shrunken Scenery Park) features a large pond in the center full of huge koi. This garden was about a mile away from the epicenter of the atomic bomb and thus was destroyed by the blast. Restoration began in 1949 and lasted for 30 years.

From the peaceful setting around the pond, we were taken to another part of the park to see a leaning, 200-year-old Ginko tree that was one of the very few near the epicenter to survive the bombing. Its seeds have been sent around the world to appeal for peace.

We left the tranquil Shukkeien Garden to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, completed in 1954 on an open field created by the atomic explosion. This location, near the epicenter of the blast, was once the city’s busiest downtown commercial and residential district.  

The Atomic Bomb Dome was our introduction to the park. The crumbling structure, about 500 feet away from the epicenter, survived as a skeletal ruin. It has been left that way to highlight the destructive force of the bomb.

Our guide showed us a “before” picture.

As we walked the grounds of the Peace Memorial Park, we saw several significant monuments.

The Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students is a five-storied structure that was built to pay tribute to the over 10,000 Japanese students who died during the war. Many of these students, some as young as upper elementary school and junior high age, were “mobilized” to help tear down buildings to create firebreaks to prevent the spread of fire after air raids.

On the day of the atomic bombing, a massive building demolition project was underway in central Hiroshima. Thousands working outside that day were killed, including 6,907 students.

The Children’s Peace Monument is a statue of a girl with outstretched arms. A folded paper crane rises above her.

This statue was inspired by the true story of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who survived the blast at age two but died ten years later of leukemia caused by radiation from the bomb. Before dying, Sadako folded over 1,000 paper cranes, believing the Japanese legend that doing so would grant her wish to recover from her illness.

To this day, colorful, folded paper cranes from all over the world are sent to this site in her memory. Many are displayed near the monument.

The Peace Flame has burned continuously since it was lit in 1964 and will remain so until all nuclear bombs are destroyed.

A cenotaph is a monument in honor of someone whose remains are in another location. The Memorial Cenotaph here is a concrete structure with a saddle shape that represents a shelter for the souls of the victims of the bomb. Note that it is aligned to frame the Peace Flame, and in the background, the Atomic Bomb Dome.

The stone chest in the middle holds the names of all those who died as a result of the atomic bomb. An estimated 70,000 people perished immediately in Hiroshima. More than 200,000 died due to radiation sickness in the years that followed the blast.

A visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum completed our tour for the day. I found this Japanese commentary on the dropping of the atomic bomb thought-provoking. The museum featured examples of “belongings left by the victims, A-bombed artifacts, and testimonies of A-bomb survivors.” It was a pretty grim place.

After viewing such somber monuments in the Peace Memorial Park and visiting the museum, I was somewhat cheered by the sight of these Japanese schoolboys on yet another field trip, a reminder that the phoenix rises from the ashes.

In my next post, I’ll talk about our one stop in South Korea: Busan.

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Highlights of Japan: Nara

Posted on October 17, 2024 by patsypridgen

Sacred Sika deer greeted us on our next excursion in Japan. Still docked in Osaka, we visited the city of Nara, the first capital of Japan. These totally tame deer in the park near the Todai-ji Temple in Nara were a novelty at first but became a nuisance when one went after my green tea ice cream. Sacred to the Japanese maybe, but not to me.

The Todai-ji Temple is historic and big. When completed in 752, it was the largest building ever constructed in Japan.

That’s me with the umbrella. With the oppressive heat, I adopted the Japanese custom of seeking relief from the sun under a “parasol.”

The Todai-ji Temple has to be massive to hold this giant bronze Buddha statue. The hand gestures of Buddha statues, called mudras, are meaningful. Here, the extended, cupped hand means do not worry, and the raised hand represents a shield to help believers overcome fear.

Being the largest bronze Buddha in the world, the Todai-ji Buddha statue needs a pair of golden matching guards, one flanking the left, the other on the right.

Children visiting the Todai-ji Temple enjoy climbing through this wooden structure, cut the size of the nostril of the massive bronze Buddha. Passing through is believed to bring good health and luck. I guess adults who can fit could try this too!

There are 1,223 World Heritage Sites, and I sometimes think the recognition is handed out a little too easily. The Todai-ji Temple is a World Heritage site, however, that certainly earns the title. It was my favorite Buddhist temple in Japan, and believe me, I saw quite a few.

What makes this temple special, of course, is the giant bronze Buddha and the golden guards. But there were other impressive statues as well, designated by the Japanese as National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties.

One temple down for the day, one shrine to go. The Kasuga-taisha Shrine is famous for the thousand bronze and stone lanterns marking the way to the entrance.

I’m honestly not sure where this picture of a torii gate was taken. (So may shrines, so many gates….) But it’s interesting to note the significance of the Torii. These gates mark the border between the human realm and the realm of the Shinto deities. Believers pause and bow before walking through.

With a population of a little over 367,000, Nara was one of the smaller Japanese cities we visited and lent itself to a short walking tour through a preserved historic neighborhood. Though no longer inhabited, this Japanese house gave us an idea of what a Japanese home in a city looked like before the advent of high rises.

It’s hard to see, but this garland of red cloth balls depicts rolled-up monkeys. They can be worn as good luck charms (I guess in a smaller form) or hung near the doorway of a house, as you see here, with wishes written on their curled backs. Maybe no stranger a custom than the luck associated with a four-leaf clover?

Nara, a city I’d never heard of, proved to be an interesting place to visit, a reminder to me that sometimes what’s not on the must-see list in a country can be an unexpected treat.

Our next stop, which I’ll post about soon, was a city with a name we all recognize: Hiroshima.

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Highlights of Japan: Kyoto

Posted on October 11, 2024 by patsypridgen

Our next port of call in Japan was Osaka, which we used as a base to visit nearby Kyoto, a city considered to be the cultural center of the country. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, one of Japan’s biggest tourist attractions, is located there. You can see how this temple, covered in gold leaf, got its name–even its reflection in the pond is golden.

Of course, this being Japan, there was a lovely, serene garden surrounding the Golden Pavilion.

Next, it was on to the Nijo Castle, built in 1603 on orders of the first Shogun of the Edo Shogunate. It was here that Shogunate rule began and also ended, when in 1867, imperial rule was restored, ending 700 years of samurai reign. Today the castle is a World Heritage Site.

Another tranquil Japanese garden, of course, this one at the Nijo Castle. Looking at this photo of the shady trees and cool water, I find it hard to believe how hot I was that day as I strolled around.

The final destination of our day in Kyoto was another temple. The Kiyomizu-Dera Temple, a favorite tourist site, was first built in 780. Remember if it’s a temple, it’s all about Buddha.

Our guide for the day hadn’t done her homework, so she was unable to tell us anything about the dragon parade that was going on during our visit to the Kiyomizu-Dera Temple. One thing for sure: this event drew a crowd!

Shops nearby sold or rented kimonos for those who wished to dress for their visit to the temple. I would have died in the 90-degree heat wearing such an outfit.

I snapped a picture of this grove of bamboo I passed on my walk to lunch. Farther along, I saw one of the uses of this pervasive Japanese plant. Kyoto, especially, is known for its bamboo forests.

The next two paragraphs are for history buffs.

Kyoto was on the initial list of possible target cities for the atomic bomb. The US Secretary of War at the time, Henry L. Stimson, is credited for saving the city. He noted that Kyoto was Japan’s ancient capital and the center of Japanese culture. Destroying the city, he argued, would not play well for the United States on the world stage. Also, he’d spent his honeymoon there and had fond memories of the city. (This second, personal reason is mentioned in the movie Oppenheimer.)

Thus, Kyoto was spared, and as we all know, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not. More about these two cities, which we also visited, in a future blog.

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