Hiroshima

A good brunch at the MessHall on base was a good way to start after last night, and then Hector, Dan (I'm one of 3 Dan's here) and I took off for the train to Hiroshima. That's really the closest big city to Iwakuni, and it looked a bit like a JV version of New York. Lots of bright flashing advertisement lights, not much space between buildings, and obviously some amazing history. We started our visit with Hector's and my first "Coolish," which is ice cream in a sort of toothpaste-like container. We started making our way toward the Peace Park and stopped at a few places along the way to be tourists, do some shopping, and of course get some good food. It seemed like half of the things we noticed or took pictures of are rather "normal" things in Japan that are just way off from what we're all used to seeing. Besides the fact that everyone here drives on the wrong side of the road, everything is super small. The 3 of us are all a bit tall and had to duck to get into a lot of places... including PARKING GARAGES! Other than that, the fashion, cars, and strangely translated advertisements grabbed a lot of our attention.

Who wants to get "Crunky?"

The first tribute we saw to the victims of the infamous blast - check out those turtles!!
Strawberry Shortcake? . . . Really?
Crazy-Awesome drumming video game
Entrance to a parking garage - pretty amazing contraptions

Eventually we made it to the center of the historical tributes: the A-Bomb Dome - The nearest building to the hypocenter that still stands today - and then to the Peace Park and museum. The museum was humbling, to say the least. Seeing such a big and bustling city standing today, it's hard to picture it as it was. . . until you see the museum. The people who put it together created an amazing collection of artifacts, models, stories and photographs that depict the event in amazing detail and honor to the victims and survivors. One of the striking examples was a watch that was being held near the blast that still reads 8:15 - the time of the explosion. I'll include some pictures, but it is hard to accurately share the effect that the visit has on its visitors. It was a quiet place all the way through, and was portrayed very well as a factual account of the tragedy and not a political or bitter account on anything that happened. The city, understandably, is adamantly against any nuclear weapons in the world today, and at every nuclear test for almost 50 years, the mayor of Hiroshima writes a letter to the head of whichever country is conducting the nuclear test - to include of course, the United States. It's hard to share all of the stories because there was so much to take in during only a couple of hours. Hopefully you can all get a small idea of what things were like by looking at the pictures.

At the Hypocenter

View of the museum from the far end of the park
Model of Hiroshima before the bomb
. . . and after.
August 6th, 8:15am

After the serious part of our visit, we worked our way over to an Irish pub for dinner and pints. I had a delicious meat pie and a couple of pints of Irish beer while watching some live rugby matches on TV (a great way to experience Japan) and then we took to the streets again to explore a bit more before heading back to Iwakuni. A few more signs, funny cars, and a stop into a "jazz bar," we wandered our way back to the train, and were ready to call it a night. A great day to be sure, and a good start to what I hope to be some amazing travels to come.

like a mini NYC

Can anyone tell what they were trying to say?

Driving my Subaru in the arcade
Yep, that's a Guinness sign in an elevator
so many bikes here!! it's awesome