Something to do from Hiroshima in lieu of Miyajima.

[ben_issacs]

Folks, 

A trip that could be done from Hiroshima, not of rail interest, I admit, is to Kure, down the bay.

Kure, during the war, was a very important Japanese naval base and ship building facility, and is still used by the  ships of the JMSDF.

Its attraction is the Yamato Museum. 

The Yamato was one of two giant battleships, its sister was the Musashi, both biggest ever built, armed with nine 18 inch guns and many other smaller weapons.

Displacement, about 80,000 tons.

Yamato was built in Kure, which is the connection. 

The museum traces the history of Kure as a port and naval base, including the building of the Yamato, and its main attraction is a model of this ship, built to a scale of 1:10.

As the Yamato was 700 feet long, the model is 70 feet long!.

An amazing example of model building!

There are other exhibits as well, including a Zero fighter.

FRom Hiroshima one can get to Kure by JR trains on the Kure Line,or by a more relaxed trip by ferry down the bay from Hiroshima Port, at the end of one of the tram lines.

Could be done as a round trip, ferry one way. train the other.

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

 

 

 

[chadbag]

I've been to Kure.  A day trip from Osaka with my kids a few years ago.  It is excellent.   We visited the Yamato museum.  The model is very impressive and the whole museum is way cool.   There is also a JMSDF naval base next door with submarines, IIRC, and there is a static submarine out in front just down the street from the Yamato museum.   There may be a museum or something at the sub base -- I don't know.  We didn't have time to go explore there but with the submarine static display it gave me the idea that maybe there was something there.

 

Much recommended.

 

[katoftw]

Takehara along the Kure Line is worth a look if you light water/island views, sake and old wooden towns.

Edited May 26, 2019 by katoftw

[Keith]

I agree it was a great place to visit, they had an app which gave summaries of the museum. It was also a pleasant trip down there on the train. The actual model was very impressive.

[cteno4]

That’s the best use of smart phones in museums (along with the map to the closest bathroom!) to translate labels with qr codes! I hate the use of cell phones in museums, it just removes the visitor further from the experience and isolates people more from each other in the environment — I mean why bother to take a family to an exhibit if you are just staring at the cell phones the whole time! Even with augmented reality, why not just do vr at home? But in this case it can be used in a limited way to get information past the language barriers easily. 

 

Jeff

[ben_issacs]

Folks, 

My visit to the Yamato Museum was quite a few years ago, then there wasn't much in the way of English text on the descriptive panels for the exhibits.

One could get earphone sets which gave a description in English, which I didn't use.

What's it like with the more recent rips described?

And, as an aside, walking back to Kure station, I spotted a shop with  a Tamiya sign outside, obviously a hobby shop.

Went inside, they had a good range of N  scale railway models, the owner had obviously opened up the Tomytec ten pack railway collection boxes and was selling the contents as individual items, which was a good idea, so I bought three or four of these vehicles.

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

 

 

 

 

[bikkuri bahn]

Senohachi grade on the Sanyo Main Line.  Pusher locomotives on freight trains.  

 

[Yavianice]

16 hours ago, cteno4 said:

That’s the best use of smart phones in museums (along with the map to the closest bathroom!) to translate labels with qr codes! I hate the use of cell phones in museums, it just removes the visitor further from the experience and isolates people more from each other in the environment — I mean why bother to take a family to an exhibit if you are just staring at the cell phones the whole time! Even with augmented reality, why not just do vr at home? But in this case it can be used in a limited way to get information past the language barriers easily. 

 

Jeff

 

Slightly tangent in this thread, but I visited the Estonian National Museum a few months ago and encountered a RFID card system with tablets to translate pretty much everything. I love it! No QR codes, no apps you need to install, no distractions, just swipe and read. 

 

 

[cteno4]

Yep it is a great way to go with led panels being so inexpensive these days. We did the master plan for a multicultural center Albuquerque about a decade ago that had to have everything in a minimum of 3 languages. Even then cost then of using led panels was not prohibitive. It did add a chunk of change to operations for electricity, added to the cooling budget (although this is getting better and better) and you get into the glowing screen world effect as well. Most don’t need to be very interactive so no expensive surface display needed, just simple button to select languages on a simple digital media display box or linked raspberry pi.

 

Passport idea is fun with rfid or barcodes to allow folks to make bookmarks to get material later w.o making them get their cellphones out. We almost did it in a museum that’s with a reference library, but the library side decided they didn’t want to be tied down to supporting the backside of providing content to general public outside the exhibit (museum had no regular staff) as they were more detailed/research oriented. So those systems require you to keep the backside going well or a disappointment to the visitor.

 

qr codes have the advantage that you can very inexpensively (outside the translation costs) add translations to existing exhibit labels. Up side is you can have multiple people in front of an exhibit, each with their own translations at the same time, where with the panels only let you do one at a time. Downside is you have folks staring at their cellphones in front of the exhibit. There is no perfect solution unfortunately. You want people to get immersed in the exhibit and not distracted by other things like cellphones or changing panels, but languages and age as well as impairments like physical, visual, auditory can require a lot of aids to help, but it’s always a big balance for the best overall experience for all you visitors.

 

Adding translations to exhibits is pretty expensive, but it’s becoming much more common to have a lot of other visitors languages needed around the world and museums need to get as many visitors in to keep the doors open.

 

jeff