similar, & different, experiences in... Hiroshima, Japan, part 2

Originally, my plan was to move you people from Hiroshima to Kyoto, instead of sidetracking this "miniseries", but instead of completely skipping over day 2 in Hiroshima, I might as well present to you this mind-numbing & sobering account of the Hiroshima A-Bomb/Peace Memorial Museum!

"Today was one of my favorite days of the trip. It was our second day in Hiroshima and it was very educational and emotional.

To begin with, our hotel was beautiful so we had breakfast in a room with glass walls over looking the bay, palm trees, and paradise."

This is where all pleasantries end, & utter sadness begins...

"The first stop on our trip was to the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima. We watched a horribly sad video to get us in the mindset for what the museum would eventually show us. We met up with our tour guide who was an amazing man. This man was in his moms womb when the bomb was dropped. She wasn't there when it happened by she went back to Hiroshima days after the bombing and saw the destruction first hand. with our tour guide we took a short walk around the city and saw the hypo center. It is out front a hospital and it was destroyed in the bomb but the doctor who pretty much ran in rebuilt it and it still operates today. We also visited a graveyard where most stones survived the blast. Our tour guide was the first to discover something interesting about the tombstones. He could tell the direction of the blast based on the texture of the stone. we felt on the outside where it was covered in scratched and dents and was really rough (from the blast) but the inside was smooth like it originally was. It was insane. On our tour we saw a bunch of statues in War Memorial Park and the A-Dome and even the bridge which was the target of the bomb."

That video probably affected more than any other video, educational or not, ever... The memorial itself was less stirring than the video, originally filmed in 1987, but it was still just as peaceful as everything else nearby, if for no other reason, to remind everybody that peace always prevails, even in the aftermath of such mega atrocities... 

the flag hanging above everything else

I figured this clock would fit the bleak subject(s) better in black & white, so that's precisely what I did!

the hollowed-out A-Bomb Dome

 "Our tour guide has tours every day of the week because he is very passionate the people know the truth about the effects of the bomb. He said the Japanese government denies any side effects of internal exposure. Even the museum near by denies this so his mission is to educate people on the truth. When we were walking around the park we were getting swarmed by school kids! They literally would run up to us (groups of 4-6), circle us, and ask us questions in English. It was so cute,  yet overwhelming because we could not escape! This happened in Kyoto, too!"

As any Chernobyl survivor could probably tell you, radiation is nothing to mess with... Perhaps that's why almost all hospitals keep their "radiation rooms" in complete lockdown mode, or perhaps it's something else entirely, but when it's an entire national government still doing so, that should be even more troubling to society at large, but apparently, it isn't...

There were, however, so many local school kids running around, apparently there to not only learn about the atrocities of 1945 themselves, but also to complete these little questionnaires, mostly from tourist groups such as ours, & that they sure did, as they kept asking questions of whomever they could possibly encounter, & that continued even up until the time we boarded our bus to return downtown a few hours later, so at least there was some fun to be had in this otherwise bleak environment!

"At the end of the tour the guide told us what a lot of people want to know: Do the Japanese have animosity towards Americans? His answer was amazing. His response was, "No, We did a lot of bad things, too." He said that Japanese people do not hate us after what we did, the slogan is "forgive and then forget" he felt this wasn't right, that it should be something like "forgive but don't forget." The Japanese are very passionate about ending the usage of nuclear weapons so their goal is a nuclear free world by 2020. Sadly, I don't think this will happen..."

Instead of making any derogatory comments about multiple generations of Japanese citizens, I'll just make my pitch here for you people to join the Global Zero Movement:

Even more pointedly yet, I'll let the organization itself make the pitch:

http://www.globalzero.org/demand-zero/sign-the-petition

"PRESIDENT OBAMA,

FOUR YEARS AGO IN PRAGUE,

You stated clearly and with conviction your commitment to seek a world without nuclear weapons. You asked for perseverance. You dared us to overcome our differences. You challenged us to ignore the voices that tell us the world cannot change, and you told us words must mean something.

We heard you.

On June 17-18, when you met with President Putin on the side of the G8 Summit, we urged you to negotiate further cuts to the massive U.S.-Russian Cold War stockpiles and pave the way to bringing world leaders into the first international negotiations in history for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.

By signing the above petition, you will be joining the global grassroots movement in support of Global Zero. You will receive periodic updates from us and can unsubscribe at any time. Let’s demand zero and make history together."

The following information is required on the above linked page:

- first name

- last name

- e-mail address

- country

- ZIP code

- a simple security measure

I don't particularly care for either the left or right wing in D.C., but regardless of your overall politics, I'm sure human lives are always more important than some pointless "gamesmanship"... 

"The museum itself was intense. We saw a lot of things that cannot be forgotten. Some of which included before and after photos and replicas, watches that stopped at 8:15 (time of the bombing), a wall covered in black rain, tattered uniforms, and a staircase where a man was sitting when the bomb went and his shadow is permanently printed on it. There were real photos as well and haunting drawings from survivors."

8:15 A.M., 8/6/45: the Japanese answer to Pearl Harbor

"A dragonfly flitted in front of me and stopped on a fence. I stood up, took my cap in my hands, and was about to catch the dragonfly when..." This was quote on the wall of the museum."

BUT ENOUGH SADNESS! LETS MOVE ONTO MIYAJIMA ISLAND A.K.A. SHRINE ISLAND!!

Shall we? Absolutely! 

"We took a beautiful ferry ride to this island. It was full of shrines, deer, temples and gift shops.  The island itself is huge but we only had time to explore a little bit of it. We learned the difference between a shrine and a temple. A shrine is of Shinto religion and is identified by having a Tori gate which you have to walk through. A temple is Buddhist and has no tori gate but the roofs are made of clay tiles and have gargoyle type things on them. But you will often see a tori gate at a temple because the two religions blend. Our tour guide Noga said that Japan loves all religions because Shinto has over 8 million gods so whats a few more? They celebrate birth with Shinto, weddings in the Christian way and Buddhist funerals. They pride themselves on religious tolerance."

While that happened, I followed as many of the deer as possible around the island, & I even caught 1 digging into the back of a truck:

After I got done stalking them, as well as buying a few more souvenirs, I headed along the gate myself in order to receive the same "shrine & temple" speech, & after that, I had what I think finally put me closer than ever to becoming a "pescetarian" (1 who mainly eats seafood): these delicious fried oysters, on a stick that had probably been used to skewer quite a few kebabs before then! Actually, I had already tried something similar downtown the previous evening, but being near water just makes seafood taste that much better, doesn't it? 

"Anywho, the island was amazing. We saw a 400 year old bonsai tree and went to a giant red shrines and there was a huge red tori gate in the ocean. To enter a lot of shrines you need to purify yourself by using a bamboo cup with a stick. You take it in your right hand, fill it with water and wash your left hand first, then your right, then you take some water and put it in your mouth and spit it out so that you are completely purified. By the end of the trip we were pros at this."

...& germaphobes everywhere probably just fainted even just at the mere thought of having to do something like that... Well, to those of you who fall into that category, I have the following request to make: Just shut up & purify yourselves already! 

"Today was actually the fourth of July so we planned to set off fireworks on the beach but instead we tried to interpret japanese game shows which were crazy. I then watched Princess Mononoke!"

Meanwhile, I kept trying, & (mostly) failing, to control my continued Haagen-Dazs cravings, both downtown & inside the hotel, while also trying to figure out when the Macy*s fireworks show would start over there... Turns out that the show started around 9 A.M. local time, by which time we would set off for Kyoto! 

"Sorry this was so long but there was just so much to say! Lest we never forget Hiroshima!"

sorry, atheists, but... amen! 

 "Xoxo, Reishi (Lacey)-Chan :P lololol I'm lame"

*can confirm* /sarcasm

Stay tuned for part 4, this time from Kyoto, but before then:

As you can probably tell, the Frozen soundtrack em Português Brasileiro is more faithful to its Latino Spanish counterpart than even the 2 European soundtracks are to each other... I know I took the French-language staff to task last time for leaving the end credits in English instead of finding somebody else to fill that gap, but I just noticed the Portuguese staffs on both continents making what I believe to be an even more troubling mistake: not only leaving the 2nd rendition of (the Latin American Spanish) "Libre Estoy" in there, but then putting the 2nd English-language "Let It Go" immediately after that! Part 4 of these 2 miniseries, though, will feature the Italian-language soundtrack, which, I promise you, will most likely surprise you in a totally different way!