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Crossing a bridge as we approach Hiroshima. It's a yucky, rainy day, but we'll be inside most of today, so no problem. We carry on!
Stan on the streetcar. We're heading downtown & will board the Astramline to reach the museum. We've ridden the elevated tram once before & LOVED it, so we're excited!
This sign shows the stations on the elevated tram - looks like a a big question mark. We're boarding at the bottom - Hondori Street. Then we're riding about 2/3 of the way around, and will be getting off at Chorakuji Station - about 25 minutes' ride.
Our stop for the Museum is Chorakuji - at the top. The large white circles are stops, and the small black circles with numbers indicate how many minutes between stations. Like everything else in Japan, it runs on time.
Our train has arrived and we're waiting for the doors to open.
Cool - this train starts out as a subway at Hondori Street, then rises up & becomes an elevated tram over the city. I LOVE this!
Looking into one of the nice stations.
I love seeing the city from this vantage!
At our stop. Now, we go down to street level and see if we can find the museum.
Stan by the station elevator.
Waiting for the light, I noticed a beautiful large old stone lantern in someone's yard. The rain is making everything very green.
It's only a "3-minute walk" from the Astramline station to the museum. Of course it takes longer for us older Americans. Just follow the signs.
There it is. There's also a nice parking lot here, but we prefer public transportation. After we arrived & looked at the brochures, we realized we could have gotten off the local JR train from Iwakuni at Yokogawa (the stop before Hiroshima Station) and gotten on the streetcar at Omachi & boarded the Astram there. Might have saved us a little time, perhaps. Oh, well, maybe next time.
Stan inside the museum. That big brass thing is called Dr Vehicle, and he will guide you through - all in Japanese.
Wait - does he look just like Stan!???
We couldn't resist this photo op! Notice I'm in the driver's seat . . . and I'm taking Stan for a ride.
We were hungry for lunch & thought it might be fun to eat here. This was the automated kind that has a console where you push the button to order what you want, then insert your money. The order is sent electronically directly to the kitchen and someone brings it out in a few minutes. The only problem was that it was all in Japanese! But the lady who worked there, came over and translated all the options. Of course.
Stan had pork cutlet curry, rice and green tea. The red is pickled ginger.
I had a set with miso soup, and a dish that tasted like egg foo yong over rice - delicious! And of course my iced coffee.
Decals on the wall above us.
Potty time & then we'll tour the museum . . . Look again - the toilet already has a seat that's down, but another smaller one still up - just for kids! I REALLY could have used this when our children were small & still at home . . .
A 747 on display on the first floor.
In the kids' craft room, they're building all kinds of stuff. We were particularly fascinated with this one. It's made of a balloon, an old film cartridge case, and a CD. A small hole is punched at the bottom and when the balloon is inflated, it "floats" across a smooth surface.
Models that children have made are on display.
Closer view - some are made using recycled products. What's really cool is that the entire first floor is free and you only have to pay if you go upstairs, and then it's only 500 yen for adults, and 250 for children. But because we arrived on pubic transportation, we got a 200 yen discount. Hooray!
On the second floor, there was a cute display that was another great photo op for kids. We didn't even try to get into that one!
Videos of some of Japan's domestic airliners - cute!
This room was dedicated to some of the smaller trains - trams & streetcars I think.
Margie & Stan "standing" on the tracks . . . One of the museum workers walked around with us translating the signs. How considerate.
Photo of a huge control panel. This is the kind of stuff my world-famous dad used to design and build - he would have LOVED everything about Japan . . .
Pieces of the undercarriage in glass cases - to show how they work.
STAN! Don't push that button!!!!
It's OK - it's all interactive, but unfortunately, it's all in Japanese.
This is the wall with airplane models. Wait - what is that?
Yep - I thought it looked familiar - we saw the original Wright Flyer in Washington DC a few years ago.
Earlier planes - look at all of them!
And more modern planes.
That looks like one of the USA's space shuttles at this end.
Oh - now the ships . . . Oh look at this beautiful ancient wooden boat.
Amazing detail.
But it's not so ancient - this plaque says it was built in 1998 . . .
And it's in front of the famous "Floating Torii" at Miyajima Island!
All kinds of boats & ships.
And cruise ships.
As you can see, the second floor is a huge room with models in glass cases everywhere - and we're only about half-way around! It's also very beautiful . . .
Oh - here are the trains!
Lots of trains.
And more trains . . .
Shinkansen . . .
There's always a celebration in Japan when a new Shinkansen model debuts and again when they're retired . . .
"Horseless Carriages that run"
WOW!!!
VERY early Italian vehicles from 1914, 1915.
All of these were in order of course - I'm only showing a few.
Some of our American favs!
And look at the difference in size between those two!
The brochure says over 2000 models from around the world here. I believe it.
And here are some of the Race Cars . . .
And emergency vehicles.
Streetcars! We know most of those pretty well - even many of the old ones are in perfect order & still running smoothly in Hiroshima. Click here for a link about Hiroshima's streetcars.
A little boy happily "driving" a train as his parents & museum worker look on.
Even the stairway areas are cute here! (But we took the elevator.)
We're up on the Third Floor now.
This is a map of the gigantic futuristic interactive display on the 3rd floor called Transportation City. It comprises the ENTIRE 3rd floor!
WOW!!! You can't imagine how enormous & COOL this is! That's Stan walking around to the right side.
This brief video doesn't do it justice - but gives you an idea of how detailed and realistic this display is with sound & movement. We could have spent hours in here!
At the airport, the planes were taxiing in and out.
All around this huge display, there were little controls where you could make individual things happen. This is the control for a ferris wheel, common here in Japan's larger cities.
Large cargo ship in a harbor.
And even a baseball park!
An elevated tram station alongside the sea.
See the little hill at the bottom right corner?
Paragliding - yet another form of transportation.
Hot air balloons up above us.
This is amazing!
We've walked up to the 4th floor now - it's a balcony overlooking the entire 3rd floor. At the top of the stairs, we walked down a little hallway toward the back to find some bottled water. But look what we found - a window with a fabulous view of what's behind the museum - we HAVE to go down there!
When we walk back to view Vehicle City from up above - it's become night & all the lights are on! Cool . . .
And it begins to lighten . . .
Stan on the balcony above this huge display.
See the little boy at the bottom? He saw me taking pictures from above & he kept trying to get in my picture - so there he is! (what a cutie!)
Margie overlooking Vehicle City . . .
Now, we've gone back down to the first floor and outside the back door. I'm looking up at the back of the museum, where we were standing at that round window just a few minutes ago.
The nearby mountains are covered in clouds. It's beautiful out here!
The brochure calls this area the Open Air Square, with a lawn area, cycle road, cart area, sun plaza, street car, wind objects and semaphore signal. But it's raining pretty hard now, so we may not see it all.
Here are the carts - inside a small garage. That would be fun!
This is a huge garage full of bikes! The bike builders allowed us to wander around & look, but they're not available for use today because it's been raining and the track is too wet.
I've never seen so many cool & unusual bicycles!
Back outside the "bike hanger" is a tulip tree in bloom. These are also called Japanese magnolia.
A waning cherry tree. Usually by the time the leaves come on, the petals are gone.
Close-up of very wet cherry blossoms.
I'm taking a rest and changing my camera's batteries. I've had to start wearing my knee brace again when I walk a lot. I'm having my left knee replaced this summer. I've done pretty well since I had the right one replaced in 2007.
Look at this old streetcar.
The sign on the front says "Red Cross Hospital" so it may have been used just after WWII. I know that Hiroshima's streetcars were up and running pretty quickly after the atomic bomb . . .
There are all kinds of cool stuff to do & places to play, but this area is closed today because of the heavy rain - bummer! We'll have to come back another time . . .
Stan at the back of the beautiful Transportation Museum building. The sky is trying to turn blue.
Back inside the museum, the very friendly and helpful employees at the Information booth bid us farewell. Read more about this FABULOUS museum here.
On display is one of Mazda's hydrogen rotary engine cars. The brochure says "Working toward a sustainable future that brings continued happiness and excitement to people in a global society." I like that. Japan's culture seems to unanimously understand that we are ALL responsible for sustaining our world for our children, and their children . . .
It reduces CO2 emissions. Even the interiors use Biotechmaterial and Bioplastic - and are touted as high-strength, plant-derived, and carbon neutral. Japan, and Mazda in particular, is really leading the world in this technology.
One last shot at the main entrance before we leave.
Outside, we see an Astram departing the station. Oh no! We'll have to wait another 10 or 15 minutes for the next one!!! But no problem, since it will probably take us that long to walk back to the station . . .
It's a little bit uphill going back - glad it's cooler today.
Ah - here we are and we don't have to worry about which track to go to. There are only 2 here - one on the left of the elevated platform & one on the right side. One goes further around to the end of the line to the fabulous park & stadium where we visited last year, and the other goes back to Hondori Street downtown. We're going back downtown. Did I mention how MUCH we love public transportation in Japan???
View from the very large windows in the Astramline car.
We're closer to the hills and there are lots of houses out this way.
A group of high school boys. Although this is Sunday, they have been participating in some school event because they're in their school uniforms. Before we reached the station at the end of the line, they had all fallen asleep . . .
Bright blue sky as we cross over one of Hiroshima's rivers running out to the Seto Inland Sea.
One last big sweeping turn - I LOVE riding this tramway above Hiroshima!
Crossing a river - clouds are still threatening, but at least it's not raining - right now.
Oh - here we go back underground to the "subway" station. There's a whole underground area of shops & restaurants once we stop!
We've climbed back up to street level at Hondori and are back inside the covered shopping area. These kids are having fun with this large anime character.
Inside Hondori Street covered shopping street.
And on one of the quaint side streets.
Cute doggy planters in a flower shop.
This shop said everything was recycled.
Suppose this cute dress was made of real recycled newspaper???
Now, my knee has begun to really pain me, so we decided to head back to the station. It was crowded on the streetcar & I was in pain, so no more photos today, but we really had fun & want to go back to the Transportation another day when it's sunny.
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