So last weekend my study abroad group CIEE took us all on a trip over the weekend to Hiroshima and Miyajima. I have always wanted to go so I was very happy to have the opprotunity to go. Before coming to Japan I feel like I knew about Hiroshima but I really didn’t have all the information or details. I didn’t really know Hiroshima. I feel like, at least in my experience, that the learning about WWII and the bomb could have been better covered. After having gone on this trip I feel very informed on both sides of the topic. We all had to attend a meeting a week beforehand in order to go over what we would be doing, what to expect, and to get materials like articles that have been written on the subject. I think the really helped prepare us mentally for what we were going to experience.
We ended up leaving Friday night after we finished classes. We rode four hours on the shikansen (bullet train) to get there and arrived around 11pm. We walked to the business hotel we stayed at and we each had our own rooms :O! In the morning we had to get up at 7 for breakfast and left around 8 for our tour. We were split up by our small groups and then put into two big groups since there were two tour guides. We walked a ways to where we could get on a cable car to take us to the Memorial Park. There are a lot of buses and cable cars in hiroshima because subways cannot be built due to the wet soil in the area since there are so many rivers and they are next to the sea.
Our first stop with the Genbaku Dome which is the only building that survived the blast that they left standing and did not rebuild. The Dome used to be used for a exhibition hall and durning wartime was a used as a government admisitrative office. It now stands as a memory of the bombing.
After seeing the dome we walked across the bridge into the Memorial Park to the Peace Museum visiting the Cenotaph on the way. The Cenotaph is the memorial set up for the victims of the bombing and hold a register ofmore than a quarter million names of identified victims. It’s arch shape it to protect the souls from the elements.
We had about two hours to walk around the museum on our own. For me, as expected it was an emotional experience but also a very educating one. I thought going in that I would be a complete mess the whole time. But I think the museum does a very good job of explaing what kind of town Hiroshima was before the bombing, how it became and military town, how the bomb came into creation, why Hiroshima was chosen, etc . These are all things I really knew nothing about before going. I think you really get a realistic view of what happend too because there are photographs of real people and pictures of the aftermath and models of the city before and after that all put it into perspective for you. In America I think we only see picture of the mushroom cloud or aerial shots of the city landscape, but never of the people it affected by it. When you move up to the upper floors of the museum there is a section devoted to the current nuclear situation in the world and it is really scary how many of these weapons exhist in this world and how many countries possess them. The last section of the museume is dedicated to the artfacts from the past, personal items such as locks of hair, lunch boxes, school uniforms, tricycles, etc. This part was the hardest to walk through having to read all the stories that went along with each artifact. They also had part from bulidings that survived the blast, like a wall that had a shadow of person who was decentergrated by the blast, and some stone and metal that had glass fragments stuck in them. There was also a section that explained the black rain the fell after the bombing, the radation and medical effects after the bombing, and a small corner devoted to the famous Sadako (the girl who folded over a thousand cranes in order to grant her wish to get better because she had leukimia.
After walking around we met in the basement conference room for a talk/presentation with a Professor Jacobs about America’s reasons for creating and dropping the bomb. I was really appreciative of how honest and forward he was about everything. I feel like he presented the information almost unbiasedly, but also didn’t try to hide how damaging and destruction it was. I also liked that he took the time to explain how the bombs are made up and the difference between the two bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He also explained just how much more powerful the bombs that exist today are. I feel like learned more in this one hour talk with him than I did in High School when we covered the subject in history classes. The thing that made the biggest impression on me was when he explained to us that you just can get ride of a nuclear weapon, that you can dismantle it but the core of the weapon the uranium or plutonium exist for thousands of thousand of years. I think he said that it only reaches half life at 100,000years, so the problem today is that we have created this material that could and probably will destroy the world someday, so how do we protect future generations that don’t speak our language from coming upon and unlocking this very dangerous material accidentally? That just blew my mind, that this stuff will exist when the rest of us are gone and to think of what ever beings may be here finding it, and what will they do… it’s just crazy!
After his talk we had lunch before we had our had our next discussion talk with a survivor from the bomb, Matsubara-san. This was a VERY emotional story to hear for everyone. Many of us were in tears at one point or another. At first I was very reserved at wanting to film the talk, but I ended up doing so because Matsubara-san was so passionate about wanting to tell her story and to have people hear it, and the fact that more of these survivors are dying every year so not many of them are left, I feel it is important to record it in order to have a record of it. I plan on subtitling the video for everyone later on. All I can say is that it was a very moving story and I feel very lucky that she shared it with us. She also showed us drawings she did to go along with her story which were also very moving. The most influentional things she told us was that she said she felt so strongly about talking to people specifically of our age, more than elementry school or middle school kids, because we are in a position were we can change the future (where other kids are still too young to do anything). We are going to be the ones responsible for the future and we have to make the right choices.
After the talk we had small group disscusions before touring the rest of the park. We saw the peace flame, which will stay lite until all nuclear weapons are destroyed in the world. We saw the Children’s Peace Monument dedicated to Sadako and all the children affected by the blast. The paper cranes that were on display were really cool to see, these are sent by students from all over the world. We also saw the Korean victims monument, the memorial mound (which holds the ashes of 700,000+ victims, the peace bell, and the memorial tower for the mobilized students (the students that worked a laborers).
After our tour we had the choice of either going back to the hotel or go to Hiroshima Castle. Since I was tired and had already seen a castle in Kyoto, I went back to the hotel with some friends of mine. We ended up going to 7-11 and then back to the hotel to chill and chat a bit. For dinner we went to an Okonomiyaki resterant! It was sooooooo tasty but I couldn’t even finish all of mine I was so full, and after I was so full I felt like I was going to throw up haha. We did a bit of shopping in the area before returning to the hotel.
The next day we had another early start for Miyajima. We got on a bus and traveled to the ferry port to get on a ferry to take us to the island. We walked around the Itsukushima shrine and saw the famous tori gate in the water. The shrine is set up for three water goddess which I thought was cool. After walking around the shrine we hike a bit up Mt. Misen to the ropeway which would take us up by gondola cars to the top of the mountain. It was really fun and the views were amazing from the top. Before going back down the mountain the CIEE director Michelene ask a couple other and I if we wanted to share some really tasty ice cream with her. It was orange and strawberry flavored and REALLY freaking delicious! Once we went down the mountain we had free time to shop in the market so that’s what I did. I bought a lot of things in the hello kitty shop, which I was surprised to see there. Then we had to get back on the ferry and take the bus back to Hiroshima station to make our Shikansen back to Tokyo. We made it back to Tokyo around 8pm. It was a very long weekend and I feel like I’m still recovering haha. But I honest feel like Hiroshima is an area that I could feel at home in, there are so many rivers and waterfronts, and there are trees and plant life, it just felt very Michigan-like to me… except there are mountains hehe.
I’m in the final weeks of class before break, I can’t believe how fast December is going! I should probably also mention that I went to a classical concert the night before we left for Hiroshima with a group of friends. It was really fun and cool to see how concerts go in Japan. The music hall was in Ikebukuro and really freaking beautiful, but kind of small. Next weekend I’m going to Kabuki theater preformance with CIEE on Saturday and on Sunday a group of friends and I are going to the Pokemon Center and Tokyo Tower. Our break starts the 23rd. On the 28th I’mgoing with my Onesan, Maki, to a Cirque du Soleil Corteo performance. Sometime over break I’m going to meet up with Molly for shopping with her Mom, sister, and boyfriend and we are also planning on a Disney Sea visit. I’m also really looking forward to New Years!It is crazy how fast time has been going here. I can’t believe the end of the year is almost here.
