A week and a half ago, I went to Hiroshima with a bunch of the ALTs (I've been referring to the JETs in my town as JETs, but technically we're all ALTs, Assistant Language Teachers. That's what we're called here) from Shiso. It was a long weekend, so we left earl Saturday morning and came back Monday night. It was a really interesting trip.
It was my first time leaving Hyogo prefecture since I came to Japan. Hiroshima is about an hour from Himeji by bullet train, so we took the bus one hour to Himeji, and then got the shinkansen to Hiroshima, which was really expensive, even for the non-reserved seating. The way it works is, you can buy a reserved seat, or, for less money, you can get a non-reserved seat. There are about three cars on the train that are open seating. The problem is, there are maybe 200 seats and 400 people with non-reserved tickets, so we ended up, not just standing, but standing squished up against the wall in the hall of the train by the door. Luckily it was only an hour.
We were staying at a cheap hotel by the station, which turned out to be really nice, considering it cost the same as a hostel. Saturday afternoon there was a sake festival in Saijo, a town about half an hour from downtown Hiroshima, so everyone headed out there. I didn't want to spend the entire afternoon drinking sake, so I went by myself to the Museum of Contemporary Art and then met up with the group in the evening. The museum was up on a hill in this big park, so there were some really pretty views of the city. The museum itself was pretty unremarkable though.
When I was looking out at the city from up on the hill, it was impossible (really, the entire weekend it was impossible) to forget that I was looking at the city that had the first atomic bomb dropped on it during the war. But at the same time it was impossible to forget, it was impossible to imagine the devastation that the city underwent. Hiroshima is beautiful, much more harming than the other cities I've seen. There are trees and the huge peace park in the middle of the city. Hiroshima means "wide island," and the city is basically a series of "islands" set into the mainland, with rivers cutting it into segments. There are lots of bridges, and one in particular was the intended target of the bomb (it actually exploded several hundred meters away).
Saturday night Lana, Lee and I hung out in Saijo and then went back to the hotel. We had planned to meet up with everyone and go out, but it turned out out hotel had a midnight curfew, so we just hung out in the hotel.
Sunday morning we split up again. Lara, Heke, Margaret and her friends (Margaret is a friend of Lara's and mine from Wash U, who is also JET and lives in Kyoto) went to Miyajima, an island near Hiroshima, and Lana, Lee and I went to the Peace Park. We spent the day wandering slowly through the park, looking at the monuments like the atomic bomb dome and the children's memorial, with the paper cranes, and the peace museum, which was fascinating but thoroughly depressing. It was all about the bombing, but the displays also dealt with the broader scope of the event, they had artifacts and documents, before and after dioramas. The thing that moved me the most was a wristwatch they had in a glass case, that had stopped at exactly 8:15 am when the bomb was dropped. Something about this image really struck me, the idea that the bomb was so powerful that it actually stopped time, and here we are, 60 years later, and that watch is still stuck in that moment. One second there was a city, the next second, there wasn't one. It really was like time stopped. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the visual image.
Sunday night we were all pretty bummed out, so we went out for karaoke to cheer ourselves up. Then on Monday, Lana, Lee and I went to Miyajima. It's one of the most famous tourist sights in Japan, we took a ferry there from Hiroshima. Miyajima is famous for Itsukushima shrine, the location of the famous floating torii gates. The island is beautiful, there are wild deer that wander around freely, and will literally come right up to you and eat the map out of your hand. The tide was out when we got there, so Lana and I were able to walk out under the torii gate, which is usually surrounded by water. We spent the entire day at Miyajima, and climbed the mountain (well, I took the cable car) to see the amazing views from the top. Again, I was struck by the inability to forget what happened in Hiroshima. I think being an American there, there's an overwhelming sense of guilt mixed in with the sadness and disbelief. It was very unsettling.
We got back to Hiroshima late and took the train to Himeji, where we caught the last bus back to Yamasaki, and arrived at 10:30 pm. It was exhausting, but it was a good trip.
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