Visiting hide at Miura Reien

I made my first ever trip to Japan (it was also my first ever trip outside of Europe) in the end of spring/early summer of 2023. It’s not a secret that it was a ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 pilgrimage. I might have never travelled to Japan, if I didn’t sort of fall for him. One of the main things was to visit him at Miura Reien. In this post I publish both colour and black and white photos of the visit that took place on 29 May 2023.

The 29th of May was the day when I finally visited ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒, so to speak. That day was very busy for me and my friend Tomoko, who was my travel companion on this particular part of my journey. I have already written about our visit to The Promised Cheesecake café in my previous post. We started our journey in the morning from Nagoya, where we had spent the weekend. We arrived at Shin-Yokohama and left our luggage at the station. From there we travelled to Miura by train. During the train trip my friend from Tokyo sent a link to an article about one special flower shop. I was aware of that particular flower shop, but I had no idea, where to find it. According to the article it’s located about two minutes walking distance from Miurakaigan Station. And the article was right.

At first glance Miura Flower Garden (三浦花園) on Kanagawa Prefectural Road 214 looks an ordinary flower shop, but when you get a bit closer and take your eyes off the beautiful flowers that have spread out from the shop to the pavement, you see all those pictures of ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒. And when you step into the shop…

At this point I started feeling very emotional. I got a permission to take photos inside the shop, too. Mr. Yasuo Oshima (大島康男), the owner, was very determined that he is not seen in the photos, not even his hands, as I would have loved to take a photo of his hands, when he was making a beautiful bouquet for us to take to ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒. Of course I respected his request.

The last leg of the trip was done by a bus. Mr. Oshima had told us, which bus we need to take. It was about ten minutes bus ride. The 800m route from the bus stop to Miura Cemetery (三浦霊園, Miura Reien) was a narrow road through a small farming community. Tomoko went to the office to ask for directions to ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒’s grave. The staff was well prepared as they had a photocopy of a hand-drawn map to give us. In fact the person in the office knew, why we were there, even before Tomoko had uttered a word.

It was easy to find the grave or should I say, memorial. I don’t understand Japanese, but I have read in a couple internet sources that ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒’s ashes were scattered in the ocean in Los Angeles (sources: here and here) and only the urn was buried here on the family plot, where the memorial was erected. That’s why I would rather use a word “memorial” than a grave. (But as said in a comment, I might not be quite right. So if you have more information about this from a trustable source, please leave a comment.)

A message to the visitors from the Matsumoto family.

There were less flowers than usually seen in the photos and videos of the place. That’s because ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒’s brother have announced that the family hopes that visitors would abstain from bringing flowers as it’s so big job to keep the place tidy. In fact I was thinking this carefully before our visit, but the flower shop owner said to us that it’s still okay to remember ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 with flowers as long as all the wrappings would be taken off (as said also in the message to the visitors from ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒’s family that is attached in the railings). So I didn’t feel guilty when we left our bouquet there.

The flowers from Tomoko and me for ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒.

It was a very rainy day, but during our stay at the cemetery, the rain stopped for a while, until it started again when we were preparing to leave.

Below are some more detailed shots of the memorial and its flowers.

The verse of ‘Hurry Go Round’ that is carved on the right hand side of the memorial:

Before the visit I was sure that it would be a very emotional visit, maybe even too much for me, because ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒 means the world to me. I was really surprised how calm I was. To be honest, I was even disappointed. Why all the deep feelings were absent? But knowing me, it shouldn’t be that big surprise. I have been missing those feelings at concerts, at football matches, even at the funerals of my parents… I act more as an observer than a participant. It seemed it happened here as well. I was very emotional at the flower shop and then again later that day during the visit to The Promised Cheesecake café, where I was studying the pictures of Mayuko and ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒.

One reason could be that I knew the memorial so well even though I visited it first time. I had seen so many pictures and videos of it that I was feeling that I had been there before. I was studying it in the same way than I study monuments in cemeteries (one of my “hobbies” is cemetery photography). I took photos of it in the same way I would photograph any other tombstone or memorial. The other reason might be that I was not on my own. I don’t usually shed tears or show my emotions in any way if there are other people present.

Then it was time to leave and say good-bye to ℎ𝑖𝑑𝑒. When I uttered those magic words “see you in the spring”, the tears finally rushed to my eyes.

Black and white photos

I took some black and white photos, too. I photographed the shop in black and white as well and to my mind, the monochromes looks better than colour versions. (More monochrome shop photos will appear in one of my future articles.)

It seems that my photos are getting darker and darker…

I had been wondering, why there are solar panels attached on the railings, but later I found a function for them: there is a security camera that can be seen in the photo above, so I cannot think any other function for them than providing power for the camera.

Good-bye, hideちゃん… until we’ll meet again.

Photos and text © Katriina Etholén