Hiroshima Weekend Trip Pt.1

Japanese Word of the Day:
English: Peace (from wars)
Japanese: Heiwa

               First off, let me apologize for not posting anything recently. As you can guess from this entry I spent my weekend out of town and during the week I’ve been quite busy. However, my dearest brother made a ‘subtle’ request for me to go ahead and post my Hiroshima entry so you can all thank him for this. Also wish him a happy birthday, he’s old now.

               Right, so since most of your probably haven’t heard how the weekend was planned here goes. At the beginning of the semester a professor mentioned that he was going to schedule a trip to Hiroshima and have an atomic bomb survivor speak to us. As an adamant history nerd (especially for World War II*) I found this an opportunity that could not be missed since, theoretically, the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be the last people to ever witness the destructive force of an A-bomb firsthand; I’m an optimist. The usual suspects all shared my desire to take part in this once-in-a-lifetime chance and so we began making plans for the trip.

The professor arranging the trip was getting a group bullet-train discount for people who wanted to take the bullet train but at ~8,000yen one way it was a bit of a hefty fee so we decided to look into the night bus system. The night buses here travel between major towns like Osaka, Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima (among many others) and average 3-4,000 yen one way. Excited by the prospect of paying the same amount round-trip as we would one way with the bullet train, my friends and I booked tickets for the night buses. The way these buses worked, we would board them from Osaka (about 40 minutes from Hirakata) around 11 at night and ride all night arriving in Hiroshima around 5 in the morning, allowing for some sleep and a full day of play.

               So, when Friday came I grabbed my bag packed for the weekend and headed to class. Due to my schedule I have class until 6:10 so the usual suspects agreed to meet me at campus and we’d all walk to the station together from there. Along the way we grabbed some bentos for dinner and were at the station by around 7:15. Ellen and my awesome train map reading abilities got us to Osaka and then through the subway where we needed to go. And we only went the wrong way once! The bus was picking us up on the outskirts of Ame-mura, an area of Osaka known for fashion ranging from high fashion that belongs on the cat walk to ‘ghetto’ street fashion. I’m not going to lie, seeing Japanese men in saggy pants listening to rap is hilarious. But I digress.

               After a bit of running around and being confused we found our bus stop with about an hour and a half of time to kill before check-in for boarding the bus. For good measure, Ellen checked her name on the check sheet just to be sure we were in the right place. What could possibly go wrong?

               Well for starters, since we didn’t buy our tickets under one name/bill we were  not considered to be one party and the Japanese with their love of forced order had not only assigned us busses but even seats. And guess what poor little American girl with minimal knowledge of Japanese was seated on a different bus than her friends? Yeah, I was terrified. And at this point in time I didn’t realize there were assigned seats because I can’t speak Japanese. So I get on my assigned bus and grab a seat where there are two empty seats. After a minute two girls come up and try to speak to me in Japanese to tell me it’s their assigned seats. Except I don’t speak Japanese. To be honest, I thought they were asking if they could have the two seats together to stay together so I got up and gave it to them and went to the back of the bus where a group of 5 other KGU international students were sitting.

Then, the Japanese man assigned to the seat I’m now in comes over and starts talking to me in Japanese. As I’ve stated before, I don’t speak Japanese so I had no idea what he was saying. So he gets angry and starts barking at me in Japanese, which by the way doesn’t help my comprehension. Luckily, all of the nearby foreigners were very nice to me and one spoke some Japanese and started talking to the angry man. Eventually he calls over the seating-check-in guy and I don’t know what he was saying but he called me gaijin-san (a rude form of foreigner) so I don’t think it was very nice. The check-in guy was nice enough though and politely showed me where my seat actually was where I proceeded to curl up and lament via text to Ellen how miserable and confused I was.

               For those of you good at math you may have noticed that the bus ride was a total of about 6 hours and when you factor out an hour or so for being miserable it doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to sleep. I should note that the seats were comfortable, if a bit cramped, and the driver turned off all the lights and the windows had curtains so under other circumstances it would be relatively easy to sleep.

               One way or another, Saturday morning came and I exited the bus into the freezing morning air. A quick text told me the bus containing my friends was not here yet so I followed the other foreigners into the bullet-train station (our drop off point) hoping it would be warmer. If anything it was colder. The Japanese aren’t big on indoor heating if I haven’t mentioned that yet. After a bit of looking around for a warm spot I gave up and waited outside until the other buses showed up. After reuniting we opted for a bathroom break where I faced yet another adversary. Japan seems to be a land of opposites as it has either super high-tech toilets with remote controls or literal holes in the ground. After staring at it a bit I surrendered to the female urinal style ‘toilet’ and rejoined my friends for breakfast. We found an early opening café and munched as we waited for the sun to rise and warm up the world before we set forth into it again.

This was terrifying.

               With the sun barely up we set out towards the memorial, about a 45 minute or so walk. Since it was obscenely early the streets were almost completely empty allowing us to take in our surroundings without fellow travelers obscuring our vision. My first observation about Hiroshima was that it was absolutely beautiful. The town was filled with new buildings that were incredibly high yet beautifully constructed. The town was divided by large rivers heading out to the sea meaning the water level would change based on the tide which painted the rocks in green algae while the tide was down. Trees littered the sides of the rivers and were dotted all around helping to reduce the urban suppression.

 

               After a good deal of walking we arrived at the A-bomb dome, the beginning of the memorial. Some of you may be aware that the a-bomb was dropped almost directly over this dome though the skeleton of the building still stands while all around it was flattened and thus it has been turned into a monument. The dome was originally designed by a Czech architect and the dome was painted green making it a famous landmark of the city, even before surviving the bomb. I got a picture that included the information bio on the dome, so I’ll try to enlarge and post that for anyone interested in the history of the building. I also feel a need to note that I saw a kitty playing in the ruins of the building which made me smile.

Pardon the trees.

               Heading down the path we found a monument I was not expecting; a memorial tower to the mobilized students. I’m going to transcribe exactly what the information sheet I got there said:

               " During World War II, more than three million students over twelve years of age were mobilized for labor services throughout the country. As a result, more than 10,000 students were killed, including some 6,000 killed by the atomic bomb. They gave up their youth and studies for the nation.
               This tower was erected by concerned family and friends to console the souls of these victims who sacrificed themselves for their homeland, and who would have had a promising future had there been no war. "

               Basically, students were ‘enlisted’ to work on projects, such as tearing down buildings to serve as fire breaks or other such labor services. As a result of this, many students were in the middle of Hiroshima where the bomb went off and died as a result. I was completely unaware of this before coming to Hiroshima so this really caught me off-guard.

 

Those are individual paper cranes strung together, by the way.

               The next monument was one I was very aware of and one that I have a personal connection to. For those who haven’t heard the story, Sadako Sasaki was a two-year old in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. While she was not directly affected by the bombing damages she developed Leukemia around age 11 and was given a year to live. Based on an old Japanese folk-tale Sadako began folding paper cranes under the belief that after folding 1000 the Gods would grant her a wish to be healthy again. At the monument I was told she completed the 1000 cranes but the popular book about her says she only completed 644. Regardless, Sadako died at age 12 and her family, friends, and peers began a movement to create a memorial for her and all the children affected by leukemia, the “a-bomb disease”. The monument bears a plaque saying “This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace on Earth.” Visitors often leave strings of cranes at the monument as both a respectful offering to the dead and a prayer for peace^.

 

               Across from Sadako’s monument was an eternal flame burning on a pool of water, meant to symbolize the fires from the bomb. If you stood directly in front of it, the flame lined up with the a-bomb dome giving the skeletal building the appearance of being on fire. Fresh flowers are brought to this monument daily and more are brought by visitors. All this is before even entering the memorial, I’d like to add.

               Unfortunately, you guys are going to have to wait to hear about the monument. This post is getting rather long and I know I’m going to have a LOT to say about the memorial. So wait for part 2 which will hopefully be posted promptly.

Sorry about the delay, Ja ne!

*I’ve now been to Dachau concentration camp, Normandy Beach, the Holocaust Museum in DC, and the Hiroshima memorial – all memorials to mass WWII death. How cheery!

^Cranes are similar to doves in Japan; they mean peace.