Weekend in Hiroshima

This weekend was another three-day weekend. I ended up going to Hiroshima with two fellow jets. Hiroshima is one of those places I kind of wanted to go, but I wasn’t really going to be too disappointed if I missed it. It turned out to be a great weekend though. After much confusion (even missing the train that was right in front of me…doh), we boarded the bullet train to go to Hiroshima on Saturday. This was the first time I had rode the bullet train with my own money. Hooray for being employed. It was pretty uneventful. The train is really smooth and only makes about 4 stops in the hour and ten-minute ride from Osaka to Hiroshima.

We got to Hiroshima and rode the streetcars to our hostel. Right when we got off from the train, this guy had asked me where the main entrance to the station was and gave him directions for what I thought would be the main entrance. Later on when we were looking for the hostel, we saw the same guy and he ended up giving us directions to the hostel. In the words of Tobias, “Oh Universe, you did it again.” The hostel was really nice I thought. I had expected a room full of bunk beds and we ended up getting out own rooms and personal air conditioner. And a tiny TV. Quite a deal. It also turns out the hostel was located right in the middle of the city, but we didn’t find that out until the last night. We had been walking all the way around a big street when we could have just walked across a bridge. Go figure.

We went to the A-Bomb dome and all the things in the Peace Memorial park. The whole area had been about 300 metres or so below the hypocenter of the blast so it had sustained the maximum damage. The dome itself is a former civic building that had been a city treasure but now just looks really eerie sitting on the riverbank. I guess it had been a heavy debate on whether or not to keep the building as a memorial or to just raze the whole thing and forget it. Everyone had their reasons. The museum itself is really powerful. It’s incredibly through and is really dedicated to the facts of the situation. I guess I was used to seeing the history museum that is next to Yasukuni that says Japan was trying to liberate Asia from European powers. The only real agenda of the museum is nuclear nonproliferation. There is a wall of letters written by the mayors of Hiroshima on the event of any nuclear test or research breakthrough. They are written to the countries that have nuclear weapons. The last line was a slew of letters to North Korea and Iran. But most of the letters are to the US and the Soviet Union. I walked away from the museum feeling really sorry for the people of Hiroshima and of Japan in general during the war. Regardless of whether you think the atomic bomb was the right decision, the fact is that the Japanese war government could have saved the lives of their citizens had they not been so power hungry. Even though America is far from innocent in mindlessly following their leaders, I think we have more of a base that questions authority, which I think is the key to preventing war in the first place.

It was really strange to be in that city and realize that only about 70 years ago, there was absolutely nothing there. Besides the memorials, the city does not retain the look of the first playground for nuclear warfare. To me, it said a lot about the battling sides of human rationality. On one side we have the ability to research and carry out ways of brutality killing and exterminating others. But in the same notion, we have the ability to build up a city out of nothing and forgive. I would recommend anyone to visit Hiroshima, no matter your view.

Besides the whole bomb thing, Hiroshima is quite the busting city. One night we dropped into a local izakaya (a bar of sorts) and ended up getting out picture on the wall of locals. Hiroshima is famous for its okonomiyaki style. It’s basically a big plate full of everything. In Osaka, they mix it all together. In Hiroshima, they pile it all on top and add in Soba noodles. It’s pretty much amazingness. There is a place in downtown called okonomiyaki-mura. (village) It is four floors of Okonomiyaki stalls. A stall usually consists of a gigantic hot plate with chairs around it. The chef cooks your’s up and you eat it on the grill. It’s one of those things you eat and wonder how the Japanese are skinny. (my theory: the unofficial diet of cigarettes and canned coffee)

We also went to Miyajima island in the afternoon one day. It is an island where the famous floating shrine is. I guess it’s one of Japan’s three most famous sites. There are also a lot of deer roaming the island that you can feed. They usually end up following you around. We took a boat there and back. The boat went by through a main river and out to the bay of Hiroshima to the island. It was a high speed boat and there were choppy waters. A great ride.

Yesterday we took the bullet train back and it was really busy. I didn’t get a seat until one stop from Osaka. I had my little corner by the bin. Pretty classy.

And it’s back at work for another week. Today I had all my classes this morning. They weren’t too bad. I guess some of my kids mentioned to their homeroom teachers that they really liked how I complimented them one day. I guess students are usually use to drill sergeants, not teachers.