Day 78 – Hiroshima

Nov 14th

Immigration
We woke up at 7AM for breakfast, so we could be ready for our temperature readings at 7:45. Unfortunately, all we had to do was read our name and walk by a thermal camera, and we didn’t have passport processing until everyone was done. I finally got to the passport terminal by 11 with Becca and Annie to entertain me in line. They took our finger prints via a high tech scanning device, and we had our pictures taken. Of course, I made sure to ask if I looked cute in mine as I peered over the counter. That just made the customs officer smile (and yes he did think I was very cute).

Kobe Meat!
After immigration, Becca, Annie and I took the portliner (monorail) to Sannomiya Station, which is the heart of Kobe city. We walked around the streets to check out the place and found the whole atmosphere incredibly enjoying. All the infrastructure was well maintained, it was perfectly clear of trash, everything was super quiet (people, cars, etc) and everyone obeyed the street signs. I almost felt like we had to whisper at points because it was so quit. We stopped for lunch at the Saporro Beer Restaurant for the sole reason that it had English in its title. We chowed down on marbled-beef fried rice. Delicious! Then I headed back to the Explorer to catch the bus to the Shin-Kobe Station.

Hiroshima
We took the bullet train south of Kobe to Hiroshima, which is another port town that was once a hot spot of activity for the Japanese military. Of course, it is most well known for when the Enola Gay dropped the very first atomic bomb on it in 1945. Over 200,000 people were killed that day, and the area was completely wiped clean of all buildings (except for one iconic dome-shaped one) and people. When we reached the Hiroshima Peace Park, which is located at the “hotspot” of the bomb, we found a variety of memorials to commemorate that piece of history. A tall, twisted clock tower chimes every day at 8:15AM to signal the time the bomb dropped. A peace bell can be rung to express the need for peace throughout the world. A dome-shaped mound marks the pile of cremated ashes of victims from that day. A tranquil water pool surrounds a large flame that will remain light until all the nuclear weapons are taken off the earth. Finally, a children’s monument with thousands of paper cranes marks the remembrance of the children that suffered from the aftermath of the explosion. The park wasn’t really what I expected, since I somehow had the idea we would see more of the actual destruction of the bomb. The only remaining piece was a dome-topped building standing across the river. Next, we toured the Peace Museum, where we studied exhibits containing charred clothing, melted bottles, black fingernails, collected melted skin and tarnished building pieces. Walls showed the radioactive black rain that fell 30 mins after the bomb’s explosion from a collection of dust, debris and radiation in the sky. Stones steps showed the shadow where humans sat after the bomb’s explosion, which turned the rest of the stone white. All the pictures looked like the apocalypse. People had skin hanging off their bodies, clothing tattered and missing body parts. On the second floor, we found Sadako’s paper cranes that originated the story I read as a child about a young girl with leukemia who believed making 1,000 cranes will allow her one wish to live to come true. After absorbing all the somber material from the museum, we made our way back to the bullet train to spend the night in Kobe.

Highs and Lows
My “high” was finding a civilization that is my height! My “low” was watching Jake eat the most disgusting brick of fish on the train ride home form Hiroshima.