Hiroshima and Miyajima

Sunday, April 26, 2009

It’s now 8 pm and I am on an island called Miyajima. This morning I woke up in Hiroshima at about 9:30, after drinking with Jeff the night before. Today was his birthday so we were preemptively celebrating. I packed up and talked to Andrew for a little and then met our group in the lobby of our little hotel at 10:30. The hotel was actually nice. It’s a chain called the Toyoko Inn and we all had individual rooms. It was a nice break from the constant crowd of traveling in a big group.

This morning we went to Peace Park in Hiroshima, the Atomic Bomb Memorial. On the way, we passed by the A-Bomb Dome, a building that was close to the central blast of the bomb, but somehow managed to remain standing, though everyone inside died instantly. The structure of its once green dome remains, and it has been preserved as a reminder of the ramifications of nuclear war.

Peace Park, the memorial and the museum were designed by Kenzo Tange, a Japanese architect. The memorials were beautifully aligned with the dome from a specific spot on the way to the museum. The building itself is very simple, but it seems to suit its purpose very well. It becomes almost a blank slate on which the story of August 6, 1945 in Hiroshima can be written. The museum is lifted up off the ground floor, allowing a consistent view of the park, the memorial and all the way back to the dome.

Inside the museum, I read countless stories of lost lives, lost siblings, lost parents or spouses. The worst were the stories of lost children. The museum is arranged to tell the history of the event, so there is a lot of build up to the actual bombing. It gives the visitor a glimpse at what life was like in Hiroshima in the years leading up to the fatal attack. A good portion of the museum was spent just explaining how a nuclear weapon works, and its effects on the human body.
The question I was struck by (simply because I don’t know my history well enough) was why Hiroshima? Why was Hiroshima chosen as the main target of the U.S.? After going through the museum, it seems that Hiroshima had developed into one of the major military cities in Japan at the time. Unfortunately, it was also an educational and cultural center. I think the major reason it was chosen was because it did not have an Allied prisoner of war camp.

It is gut-wrenching that at 8:15 in the morning on a hot, sunny summer day, an entire city was leveled and thousands upon thousands of lives were lost in an instant. To be honest, I felt terrible being an American anywhere near the city. It really has nothing to do with being patriotic. It has everything to do with respect for human life. War is such a terribly ugly thing, and seeing the museum at Hiroshima served as a strong reminder of what destructive, hateful little creatures we people can be. Going to this place and seeing the vast amounts of devastation done in an instant was horrifying, but recognizing how long it has affected people’s lives and the livelihood of that city is even more petrifying.

Hiroshima has made strong efforts to continue on as a city of peace, serving as a reminder to the rest of the world of the consequences of war. Japan itself refuses to research, develop or have nuclear weapons. To be honest, I’m glad I went there, just because it made the realization that this terrible thing actually happened in the world more real. I won’t go into too much detail about the stories I read or the charred memoirs I saw because I know my Mom and sister read this, but there was more than one point that I couldn’t help but cry. To be honest, I was somewhat appalled that everyone around me wasn’t crying or mourning to some extent. I read every little plaque, every little story I could find, because these are real people with lives and deaths that are deserving of respect and consideration. Children who never got to grow up, those who lost parents, people who survived with life-long deformities or have cancer today…all of this shit really happened in one second. I must have spent at least 2 hours in the museum…in fact some people got worried and came back to get me after more than half of the group left without me. By the time I came out, I was stunned. I felt so bad because today is Jeff’s birthday, and I was just not in a celebratory mood.

Of course, we’re on a fast-paced schedule here so I tried to put it behind me, and get ready for Miyajima. We took a train ride and then a ferry to the island. We got in at around 4 or 4:30. Our hotel is called the Morinoyado Inn and offers traditional Japanese style rooms that are incredibly nice. I’m rooming with Trudy and Carisa tonight.

We all went out and wandered for a little while, checking out the island. It reminded me a lot of Hawaii on the approach, but it’s definitely colder here. There is a famous shrine that is out in the water when the tide comes in. We’re going to try to get some pictures of it tomorrow at high tide. There are also a few temples, but what we’re really interested in is another monkey park.

At 6:30 we were served dinner as a group. It was a very traditional dinner and, to be honest, was comprised of a bunch of crazy shit that I never thought I’d eat. It wasn’t terrible…everything was edible, but still, not really my favorite. There was just way too much fish. There was even octopus and squid…there was even fish in the desert. I wasn’t really feeling it.

Tomorrow we have until about 4:30 to explore (Don keeps reminding us that we’re on vacation right now) before we go to the next place on our list: Okayama. Our plan was to do karaoke for Jeff’s birthday tonight, but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of that on the island. We decided to celebrate it tomorrow because that’s when it will be his bday in the US anyway. Hopefully, we’ll have some more options then.

For tonight, my plan is to take a traditional (meaning public) Japanese bath and then hang out/drink with Jeff and Carisa. Hopefully, tomorrow will consist of a visit to a shrine, monkeys and another train ride before we do some karaoke in a new city. Until then…