Due to my body suddenly deciding it would be a cool idea to get sick, Kamakura didn’t happen. Instead, Danie (after some convncing it would be fine to leave me on my own) went to a theme park like Onsen and I went straight to bed/futon. That’s how gloriously we passed our last day in Tokyo. In the evening, we went out to a Japanese restaurant with our host, which was very nice and definitely the highlight of my feverish day.
The next morning, we finally got to exchange our JR Pass vouchers and took the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. The Shinkansen is indeed fun, so much more comfortable (and so much faster and actually on time) than the German high speed train (ICE). It feels more like being in a plane than being in a train. If planes were cool, that is. Also, I was happy to get some additional sleeping and resting time on the side.
From Hiroshima, we took the ferry to Miyajima, where we just missed the last bus to our camping site (we have to remember to write a letter to Japan Guide after returning home, because some of the information they provided turned out to be quite outdated or misleading).
The floating Torii of Miyajima
The camping site, like the rest of this island, exhaled the melancholic air of days gone by. Once, it might have been the “recreational resort” it still advertised itself as, nowadays, however, not much of it’s (possibly) former glory remained. Which is kind of how we will remember Miyajima: Rich natural beauty, but full of melancholy, and living in the past. Waiting for Godot. What a beautiful and poetic atmosphere. We spent two nights in a luxurious rental tent among the semi wild deer roaming the site (slightly more respectful than the ones in Nara, thankfully) and some scattered local families that seemed as lost as we felt ourselves. Miyajima truly was beautiful, there can be no doubt about that, however, it is a lost, long forgotten, and overgrown beauty, one that old people remember while sitting at the bay, staring into a distant somewhere, thoughts and feelings lingering where there should have come a new tomorrow years ago. However, watching the sunset over the bay against the backdrop of Miyajima’s hills was spectacularly beautiful.
Waiting for the tide to come back?
Miyajima
Today, we said goodbye to the island and took refuge in a (so far) nice and quiet hostel near downtown Hiroshima. No more sharing the bathroom with giant spiders – one learns to appreciate the smaller things in life, as one is forced to slowly downgrade his or her own requirements of personal hygiene to the mere basics during travels – cold water, soap, only mild spider infestation – good to go.
After visiting the Peace Memorial Museum today, everything inside me felt like curling up in fetal position inside a certain someone’s arms, as all the horrors and emotions one gets exposed to while visiting the museum don’t leave enough room to breathe or even feel remotely fine anymore. An intense, and quite horrifying experience, but a necessary one, if one is to visit this city.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial
Hioroshima – the city’s name is synonymous with one of the most horrible sins in modern history, the drop of the first atomic bomb over a city filled with civilians. The horrors that ensued (which are shown at the museum) are still much too vivid in my mind to find adequate words to describe my feelings. But yet, the city seems so friendly and welcoming, peaceful even, that one cannot help but feel moved and touched by the ever prevailing force of life, overcoming even the most unimaginable disasters and tragedies. On August 6, 1945, about 90% of the entire city was completely leveled, half of it’s population killed by the explosion itself or the horrifying aftermath of radiation. For me, innocent and naive as I am, things like this are simply unimaginable, my mind fails at comprehending the facts and linking them to the corresponding emotions. I am a child of peace, a fact that, as it dawns on me once again, one cannot be grateful enough for. There can never be an excuse for what happened in Hiroshima. All we can do is hope not to be around when humankind finally decides to annihilate itself once and for all. I don’t know if I have the courage to believe we will be smarter than that. All I can think of at the moment are Sadako’s 1000 paper cranes and how I want to curl up in a dark corner and cry. Sadako was a little girl who developed leukemia as a result of being exposed to the A-bomb explosion at an early age. She heard that by folding a thousand paper cranes, one could be granted a wish. Sadako folded a thousand cranes, because she wished to live. But she died shortly after finishing her goal, losing against the illness caused by the bomb. Her classmates continued folding cranes in her memory, and to honor her and all the other children who died from the bomb, the Children’s Peace Monument was erected. Going there will ruin your day, that’s for sure. But what is a day of sadness compared to Sadako’s suffering.
Children’s Peace Monument
