There was an interesting piece of news that emerged today. Apparently some professors (and I don’t have any of them) have an attitude of superiority over, at the very least, some of the students. And essentially they treat the students as if they were “rich white kids that like to get drunk.” But let’s be clear, there are “rich white kids that like to get drunk” and then there’s the other ~95% of students. To address the issue, a letter was drafted challenging the claim and put in the Deans’ mailboxes. So at the end of global, Dean Mike came out and gave the effect that he’s really taking the letter to heart that we as a shipboard community need to come together better and make sure that we know we’re all in it together. It may have been legitimate. It may have been an act. It may have been a bit of both. But this letter was much of the talk on the ship. I didn’t really care.
At this point in the voyage, there’s a couple chances left to have pictures and items signed by Desmond Tutu. He’s only done one other date and that was somewhere back near day eight. That’s the day I took advantage of when there was no line. Everybody said ‘oh, I’ll just go on one of the next days he does it.’ Well from day eight back in the Caribbean to today in the East China Sea, he hasn’t done another day of “appearances.” That’s why there’s a line that extends halfway down the ship.
I kept walking by the line and shaking my head at both the length of it, and the speed that it was moving. People had friends hold their spot on line, went to class, and still made it back on line with a great deal of time to spare. So much so that when Desi called it a day because he was tired, there were still a lot of people on line. Supposedly this was supposed to be the last day of autographs and pictures, but they gave chits (which are apparently slips of paper, although I’d never heard the word before) that stated their position on line for the next “appearance.” Again, I’m just thrilled that I got on line in the Caribbean when there were only about five or six people ahead of me.
I had a plan to start studying for my art history quiz today, and I did do that later in the morning. Then I went to lunch but went back to the room to make sure that I got in as much studying as I could. Studying, for your reference, is a relative term on this ship. There’s something about being on an ocean-faring vessel that just makes studying that much trickier. Then I went to class and a very typical Semester at Sea thing happened – and nobody was unhappy about it. The quiz had to be moved because it was clear neither Dr. O’Brian nor the students were really prepared for it. Now it’s after Japan because that’s the next time class will meet.
After art history, I was back to folding more origami flowers for the Ambassador’s Ball. It’s drawing ever closer and the goal of 750 flowers is so out of reach that I’m blind to the fact that we won’t come close. I’m still going to go strong with it though because I’m bound to think of something to do with them by the time of the Ball.
The closer we get to Japan, the more I realize that Japan will be very different from any other port that we’ve visited. For one, it’s the most western port we’ll visit (which at first sounds odd because it’s location is in the Far East), as it’s the only country that can’t at least be partially classified as a developing country. It’s developed, and as I learned this afternoon, at least one-step ahead of even the United States.
Before we are allowed to enter the country, we have to have our temperature taken. Japan will not let you in if you are possibly ill with something that might be considered something highly communicable. It’s a portion of their anti-bird flu effort. It’s quite impressive that a country can institute and enforce this, so I do have to give them some credit for that. I’m mildly concerned because I’m not feeling very well and clearly have something in me. It’s still a couple days until we’re in port, though.
What was arranged was that we were called up the faculty room by sea and had to stand in line to get our temperature taken with one of those ear thermometers. Then we had to walk to the other side of the room and tell someone what the temperature was. But somehow, it did not turn out that simple for me.
So I go up to the faculty room when the Red Sea is called and get in line. They’ve got the same silly lines on the floor so we know which line we go in for our last name. If you don’t know at this point, I don’t know what to tell you. I get to the front of the line, and because the reading is for Japan the numbers are metric, so my temperature is 37.5 degrees Celsius. Between the fifteen feet where my temperature was taken and where I have to give it, I could not remember if my temperature was 35.7 or 35.7. And they kept telling us over and over again not to forget our temperature because it would slow us down. And I would keep saying to myself ‘Yeah, sure, come on, let’s get the line moving here.’ There were one or two people in front of me at the table, and in the short time that I was on line, I did some quick logic and while I know only a bit about the Celsius scale, I listened to the temperature in front of me from the seemingly healthy person (which was in the 38s) and figured that the 35.7 option was too low, so I gave the 37.5. Or at least that’s how I think I remembered I did it.
After dinner (and at this point, the food doesn’t even register on my radar), Katie and I finally finalized the Ball seating, with the intent to not make another change. If your name was not on the list, you were not getting in. I’ve had enough with this seating chart. Yet every time we go through the list, my ear seems to catch a name that I haven’t heard before. Go figure.
I didn’t have the energy to stay up too late, so I did not. Plus, we lost an hour of sleep, too. Those hours just do not stop going away. It is one of that last things I need right now.
Woke up at 7, very tired, the day before Japan, with what I would classify as a good, old-fashioned cold. After breakfast, I went to my history class and Global, which I don’t think that I was too awake for. Which is odd because I sit about four to five feet away from the history professor. She had to have seen that I was fighting consciousness. But if I were her, I would have let it go, too. Semester at Sea is a marathon. Especially after nights where we lose an hour.
After partially sleeping through both of my morning classes (I couldn’t even tell you what Global was about, but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t miss anything), I had to be awake to run our Ambassador’s Ball meeting in the morning. This one wasn’t about decorations so it went really well. We had to hash out the timeline of the ball. We had to know when both seatings would start and end, when dessert would begin, when the music would be playing in the piano lounge, when the dance would start in the Union, and stuff like that. It went well. It lasted a while because we had a lot to figure out and I’m easily distracted at times like this. But we were all happy with what we came up with.
After lunch I went to my cinema class. I thought we would be watching decent foreign films. I guess we’ll call whatever we saw today as cultural exposure. I might have nodded off in that class, too. And then after class, for the first time on the entire voyage, no matter what illness I was afflicted with, this was the first time I ever did bed rest. I had my Whose Line? DVDs and I laid in bed, watched those, and rested. I needed to. I really did. If we still had an extra day or two before port, I would not have needed to, but we don’t have the luxury of a day.
Before dinner I was able to get a letter or two done for the Ambassador’s Ball. Any time we have to contact someone on the staff of the ship, we have to draft a nice, well-written letter asking for something. Speaking of letters, the letter from yesterday morning about the students has had ripple effects. The rumors are flying left and right. There’s a consensus about which professors were intended to be the focus of the letter, but a handful of the professors that weren’t the problem are acting like they were. In other words, the wrong people are taking steps to make the ship better. Now, they’re just annoying people. And the targeted professors don’t seem to have done a thing. It’ now the running gag that if somebody has something to say that they’re going to write it in a letter to the Deans. I think we’re all a bit delusional to see that there are some better things to do with our time.
After dinner I had another pre-trip meeting – and it was with Arnie again! I cannot lose this guy! Out of all people, the septuagenarian ship psychologist continues to be near me. This trip however is only two of the five days that I plan to spend in Japan. This trip in particular goes to Kyoto and Nara has a few features that I would not otherwise be able to organize. Where I’ll be the other three days is another story entirely, and I’ll tell that when I get there.
As for the trip, it seems to be a pretty decent group of people, with a number of students that I can associate with for the trip. I’m looking forward to it greatly. I hope I feel better by the time the trip rolls around…
The 5 o’clock announcements (that came on closer to 6) teased the ship that tonight’s preport would be the most exciting preport ever! And then the announcements that told us to get our rear in gear over to preport said it again. The Deans don’t know that when you build something up this spectacularly, you need to be able to back it up. If you said that it was going to be the most mediocre preport ever, then we might be pleasantly surprised.
And what was it that made it (not) the most exciting preport ever? Well, it took most of preport to find out, but some of the deans, RAs, and the ship doc came out dressed like geishas. (You’ll hear more about geishas later.) The ship doc was the only one that cross-dressed though, and I do have to give him some credit for that because I did have to do a double take to see who it was. But here was their problem – they didn’t think it out beyond the costumes. (And I have no idea where those came from because we’re not in Japan yet.) They had no bit to go with the costumes. It did hold some promise upon their entrance, but the balloon deflated a bit quicker than they would have liked. Here’s how the doc looked:
It’s amazing how I still get a case of the preport jitters this late in the voyage, but it’s a new port, a new country, and it’s still exciting. I went to the other end of the ship for preport snack and hung around a little too long in the day because I did not get to bed when I wanted to. At least we didn’t lose an hour.
Kobe, Japan
I got out of bed, begrudgingly, at 7. We still weren’t in port yet, but we were in the port area – I could see land. And it was cloudy, gloomy, and rainy, so there was no sunrise to be missed. We were supposed to be getting into port about now, but who knows when it will be happening now. Since I was up already I wanted breakfast, and even when we come into port, that’s over before it begins, so I didn’t want to miss a free meal. My breakfasts have boiled down to one thing now. Either they have the chocolate filled croissants or they don’t. It’s either a good breakfast, or there are no chocolate croissants. There’s no gray area in between. No croissants this morning. *sigh* In the later weeks of the voyage in my usual solitary breakfasts before my 8 o’clock history class (because there’s only one or two other people in the dining room these days), I took to sitting towards the back and watching the fantail behind the ship with my breakfast and a cup of coffee. The coffee is never very good. No matter how much sugar or cream I put in, it just doesn’t cut it, nor does it keep me awake. I’m not sure why I do it, but it’s the thing that I do in breakfast. It was a little more crowded this morning so I didn’t tap into the coffee reserves.
I went up to the deck and took a picture of myself coming into port. You can tell that there’s not much going on behind me as that was the most scenic vista around. I can also tell, by looking at my face, that I’ve had better mornings. I really don’t feel well. But as I’ve learned on Semester at Sea, I have to suppress my illnesses when I’m in port because I don’t want to miss out on anything because of a cold. I don’t see myself as having much of a choice. But as you can see in the picture below, I’m clearly tired.
Needless to say, I went back to bed. There was nothing going on, and there was sleep to be had. As is usual on a port day, the announcements do a very good job preventing sleep as much as possible. But I did get some rest and felt a bit better when the announcement came on that I would not be able to sleep through. In addition to having our temperatures taken, as if that was not enough, the Japanese want us to pass a thermoscan. What’s a thermoscan you ask? Well, a thermoscan is a device that tells the Japanese immigration officials if you are too ill to enter into their country. That was al I knew about it at the time. I didn’t know if it was a booth that I had to stand in, or whatever it might have been. It was cloaked in mystery.
When I went up to Deck 6, the line was already well out of the Union. I followed it all the way into the dining hall on the other end of the ship. That’s a line stretching most of the length of the ship, and I couldn’t tell how fast it was moving. Sensing an opportunity to increase my chances of appearing less ill, I stood outside in the cool air to lower the temperature on the surface of my skin. My logic was that a person with a fever would have a higher body temperature and a less likely chance to be let into the country. I’m still thinking that I have a cold, but it may be early to tell. So I was going to do everything I could.
Then I get in line and finds that it’s moving rather quick. It only takes a few minutes to reach the Union. We have to sign in at a table, and then we’re told to walk toward the thermoscan. This is when I see the thermoscan – it’s an infrared camera. That’s it. Awful fancy name for something not so fancy. In my final efforts to avoid tripping an alarm that there’s probably no way to trip, I devised a plan. They let us walk toward the camera, but not one at a time. I walked behind the guy in front of me and blocked the camera’s view. At the end he turned, and I hoped that the second that I would be viewable wouldn’t be enough to get a good look. As soon as I walked out of view of the camera, I went into a super-quick walk straight out of the Union, hoping that if there was an issue they wouldn’t be able to figure out which one I was. There are a number of holes in my logic (including the fact that I had a cold, not a fever), but let’s not forget that I was not well at the time and the intelligence may not have been firing correctly.
After the thermoscan, there was nothing else happening again, so I went back to bed. I just want to make sure you understand the magnitude of my cold. This is the worst one I’ve had all trip – and that’s saying a lot. So lay off!
I decided to remain in bed for the required diplomatic briefing, as we haven’t had one since South Africa, I think. They can’t be that important. Especially since the diplomatic briefing in Salvador scared half the ship into not wanting to set foot in the country. I’ll take my chances. What was nice was that during diplo (as we call it) there were no announcements. After diplo was another story. Lots and lots of announcements.
At this point it’s a little after 10 in the morning. Usually we’re already off the ship by this point, but immigration was, what I’ll call, thorough. So we’re all getting a little antsy seeing Japan and not being able to get off the ship yet. I couldn’t take the announcements anymore and decided to get up for good for the day. After the diplo there was to be a performance by a Japanese drum group. It’s those kind of drums that are about two or three feet across. I’m not sure why there was this performance, but I was up for it. I found my group that I usually sit with in the Union and asked how diplo was. They said that I didn’t miss anything.
I was really hoping that the drum performance would be like taking a cold shower and really wake me up. If you have ever seen a Taiko drum performance, you know what I’m talking about when I say that I could feel my eardrums vibrate in my head while not being able to hear myself think. The volume in the Union was extraordinary, and they were very good. I’m very glad that I went to the drum performance and not the diplo briefing. Something else to mention is that as much as it’s a drum performance, the drummers themselves like to get in on it and yell while drumming. It all adds to the experience.
After the drum performance, we still weren’t done with the day’s activities yet. And we still weren’t able to leave the ship yet. I think they knew that it would take this long and never told us just how long it would take. They were very vague with their description that it may take a few hours into the morning to get the ship cleared, but this was longer than I expected.
Anyway, the next activity was the group photo. The group photo needs to include everyone on board. That’s professors, staff, and students. That’s over 800 people in one photo. The only place that could happen is the back decks. They said a professional photographer (again with the vagueness) would be taking the picture from land. The goal I had was to be able to find myself in the photo. I had one thing going for me in that I was wearing my bright red hoodie you saw in the picture above. At the very least, the color of me should make me easier to find.
It’s a very easy photo to take. You send everyone to the back of the ship and tell them to smile when it’s time to take the picture. The problem was that one of the RDs had found himself a megaphone and, worse, he decided to use it. Whereas a person in their right mind would have used it to tell the students what the picture would include, so they know they’ll be in it, the RD decided to yell at people for no reason and told people to stand three to four deep in the crowd so that there was no way they could be seen. Initially, it was only supposed to be two decks, and if anyone were on any of the other decks, you would think he was going to have them keelhauled. Then we all couldn’t fit on two decks, so the other two opened up. He really was a pill.
Then we started taking pictures. I thrust my arms out in an uncomfortable position to make sure my red arms would at least appear in the picture. We took a few pictures and then it was over. It took considerably longer than it ever should have – no thanks to the megaphone.
Because my planned trip was on days two and three, I would have days one, four, and five to travel independently, something that I haven’t done a large amount of in the voyage. Japan just makes it easier to make it happen. And when I say independently, I don’t mean along. Independent trips on Semester at Sea just mean trips that are not organized by the ship. My friend LeeAnne and I had schedules that matched up on our free days, so we decided to partner up and see what we could do.
We had been told over and over again that if we were doing overnight independent trips that we would need to bring our passports with us. During lunch, the ship was cleared to let us off, but the passports were not ready yet. LeeAnne and I decided that we were going to be coming back to the ship tonight anyway, so there was no reason to keep waiting for our passports. Instead we grabbed our backpacks for the day trip and finally departed the ship.
Upon departing the ship I was confused. In nearly every other port, once you get off the ship you’re somewhere. There’s either a busy street in front of you, or just something. We had a building to navigate. From here, we were looking to get to the bullet train in Kobe. We weren’t exactly sure how to get there, but we knew we needed to take some kind of rail transport to get there. The line that we were looking for now was the Port Liner. It was called the Port Liner because it was the line that ran through the port. Duh.
The problem was that we couldn’t find the station for it. Compounding the confusion was that there were a few other students wandering around looking for the same thing. We went through the building and out the other side. Nothing there but a small parking lot. And no signs anywhere. It was very odd and confusing. And only just the beginning of that feeling.
Next we tried the escalators because there was nothing else to try anymore. Up on the second level we could find the station. But it was almost like you had to know it was there to find it. But finding the Port Liner stop wasn’t necessarily the hard part. Now we had to buy tickets. There were automated machines that I had no idea how to work. We wanted to go towards the bullet train, and that was about all we knew. If I had been feeling better, not the President of the Ball, wide awake, and not taking classes, I would have taken the time to research the ins and outs of travel in Japan. I didn’t and I am flying nearly blindly.
Thankfully, another one of the students who somehow knew what they were doing told us the right buttons to hit, when to pay and how to get our tickets. That was a bit of a lifesaver. The Japanese language isn’t exactly what I’d call easy to decipher. It’s not like Italian where I can apply a bit of my Spanish to help out. But the fun didn’t stop there.
I’m used to using a Metrocard in New York City, where it had a bard code that swipes through a reader. Here, there was a spot to place the ticket, and it sucked it right up. I panicked for a second because I didn’t get the ticket back and had no idea what happened to it. It reappeared at the other end of the console, and apparently I was supposed to grab it as I was going through the gates. It was very confusing.
So we take the escalator up to the top of the building where the Port Liner runs. It’s important to note that this is neither the subway nor a train. I’m not exactly sure what that leaves, but it sure felt like a subway, except that we were stories above street level. Does that make it an elevated tramway?
The stop we were at was P03, also known as the Port Terminal. How do they come up with these names? Assuming we were moving in the right direction, the next stop was the Boeki Center (P02), followed by Sannomiya Station (P01), the end of the line.
Unfortunately, this is not the bullet train station. We’ve got to take another train to get there. As we wandered around Sannomiya, the main railway terminal of Kobe, hoping to be struck with some kind of enlightenment about how to get tickets for this train now, we saw more Semester at Sea people doing something very similar. The mini-goal right now was that we were trying to get to the bullet train, and we learned that we would have to take the subway to get there. That means buying more tickets. We found the place to buy tickets at the automated station. Although this one worked nearly completely differently than the last one we looked at. It was still confusing trying to buy tickets, and we were lucky enough to be helped out again. Now we just had to find the train.
The track, as we would find it, was located on the second basement level. Not the third because that goes somewhere else. The Kobe Municipal Subway (Seishin-Yamate Line) would take us from Sannomiya (which was now switched to be called S03) to the bullet train station, more commonly known as Shin-Kobe (S03). It was called Shin-Kobe because the bullet train is actually called the Shinkansen, and they just shortened that and hyphenated Kobe on the end of it. I’ll try to call it the Shinkansen from here on.
So we take the subway over one stop to Shin-Kobe. I know what you’re thinking – if it was just one stop why didn’t you walk it? Well, if I knew where the station was I would have done that. I have no idea where I am. These trains have spun me around so much that I don’t even know which way the ship is. I’m assuming it’s somewhere downhill.
I don’t know how long I’ve made it seem like it took us to get to the Shin-Kobe station, but it wasn’t an overtly long amount of time. We did not spend a lot of time standing around with our mouths agape with a doofy look on our faces. We made semi-decent time.
Now we had to buy tickets on the Shin-Kobe to our destination of the day: Hiroshima. This time however, there was no automated kiosk – instead we had to wait on line at the ticket counter. There are both pros and cons to having to do this. First, we don’t have to figure out how to work the kiosk. But the major problem, as we learned when we got to the counter, was the language barrier. This day was getting more interesting by the second, and it was only somewhere around one in the afternoon.
We get up to the counter and the woman spoke some English. I did not know at the time how much of a rarity that would be at the time. We tell her that we want round-trip tickets to Hiroshima. She gets to work on that. We see on the schedule screen behind us that there’s a train departing for Hiroshima shortly. Then she asks for our credit cards. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. I’ve never waited so long for two credit cards to process. It was almost like when she went in the back to do the transaction she just left for the day. We were starting to get concerned that we weren’t going to make the next train, which would have been terribly inconvenient.
After forever and a day, and enough time for the line to grow considerably behind us (including some students with their passports, which means we missed that by not long), she came back with our tickets and receipts for us. These tickets could not have been more confusing. Especially mine – she forgot to print mine in English. I didn’t know which way was up on it. At least we had our tickets.
We went up to the track and waited for the train to come. The day was not stressful per se, but let’s say I was happy to have made it to the Shinkansen track. At least, I think we were at the right track. There were people on the other side of the tracks, too. I was hoping that we were on the right side. The signage wasn’t exactly clear. I was looking for other Semester at Sea people to ask, but we didn’t see anyone. There was one girl we thought was, but we couldn’t figure out if she actually was or not. She only looked vaguely familiar, so we didn’t bother. Not long later, a train came. We got on it.
Well, getting on the Shinkansen isn’t exactly as simple as ‘we got on it.’ Our tickets gave us our assigned seats. We had to find those seats. Let’s not forget that my ticket was in Japanese. The train was mostly empty, but we think we found them. Nobody told us to get up and move anyway.
The Shinkansen operates at about 300 km/hr. That’s quite fast. The speed it moves at, the turns have to be banked, quite heavily sometimes. And there’s not much change in elevation either. If there’s a mountain or hill in the way, we’re going through it. And my ears were popping nearly the entire time. I’m still trying to figure out the science behind it, but I’m thinking it has to do with the difference in pressure between the inside and outside due to the speed we’re traveling at. It’s physics, so I’m not entirely sure on any of my logic. But the only thing I’m sure about is that my ears popped the entire hour there.
Hiroshima is located on the western portion of Japan. Hiroshima was also the first city that the atomic bomb was dropped on in 1945. (Don’t worry – it’s safe to be there now.) We exited the train station and went out to hail a cab. While a cab is not the most cost-effective way to travel, we (again) had no idea where we were going, so we figured if we wanted to get anywhere this would be how.
We hail a cab in no time once we find our way outside of the station, which was not as difficult as I thought it would be, and tell the driver that we want to go to the Peace Park. He nods as if he knows what we’re talking about and starts to drive off. I don’t think Japan is a ‘save-face’ country, so if they don’t know where they’re going, I don’t think they go. But we’ll test that idea right now.
About five minutes later, we arrive at what we hope is the Peace Park. He pulled over to the side and stopped – that’s usually a sign. We paid 1000 yen for the ride (there’s roughly 120 yen to the dollar, so you can do the math on that one). On exiting the cab, I sure hoped we were at the peace park, because I didn’t want to know where we were otherwise.
One of, if not the prominent structure at the Peace Park is the Atomic Bomb Dome, or A-Dome as it’s more commonly called. This is the building that was directly underneath the bomb when it detonated. Remarkably, portions of the shell of the structure survived the blast, but nearly every other building in the vicinity was annihilated. When we started planning this trip in Japan over a month ago, I didn’t really feel like I wanted to go to Hiroshima. I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but in my mind I only associate it with the bomb, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to see first-hand what happened there. There was some atrocious stuff around from the war in Vietnam, and I was hesitant to see what the scars of war left in Hiroshima. I am very glad I came, but I’ll get into some more detail later.
I was hit with a dilemma at the A-Dome. Throughout my voyage, I have taken a picture of myself in front of places. I think the A-Dome is something to take a picture in front of. But what expression do I have on my face? I’m at a site that remembers the murder of innocent people. But I’m at the park that was built as a symbol and show of peace to the world. There’s two facets. There’s the tragedy and the hope. Here’s what I came up with:
What there is of that building today is what was left after the bomb detonated then. It absolutely takes your breath away to think that everything that I could see – no matter how far into the distance – was absolutely destroyed. About sixty years ago, right where I’m standing, where I’ve traveled through, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. There were no people, there were no buildings, there was no transportation, finance, industry – there was nothing. To think that in that time this city has recovered and become what it is today is absolutely amazing. It truly makes you feel something inside and makes you think.
What’s become nice today is that the gloomy day that started coming into port isn’t here in Hiroshima. It is an absolutely beautiful spring day. There’s not a cloud in the sky, I’m comfortable in a t-shirt and a hoodie (even though I’m really used to t-shirts in nearly every other country), and it’s just nice out.
The Peace Park is in an odd shape and isn’t that big. There’s a museum on one end and we were planning to do that last. The rest of the park had a number of what I’ll call ‘spots’ to visit. One of them was the Peace Bell. It was a gift from the Greek embassy, as a fun fact. Here I am ringing the Peace Bell:
There are a number of other small spots that we went by, but there was one in particular that really struck a chord with me. The Children’s Peace Monument is dedicated to the children that died during the bombing. The monument has a statue of a girl atop, and is based on the story of a girl dying from radiation poisoning. She believed that if she could fold 1000 paper cranes that she would be cured. She died before she could fold enough cranes. As a tribute, children fold 1000 cranes and leave them at the monument. The kids on the ship have been doing that all voyage and hit their goal of 1000 not long ago. They’re going to drop them off later in the week.
As we walked by now, we had to stop because there was a group of Japanese school children all gathered around the monument singing. I had to stop and watch and listen. It was – without a doubt – the most peaceful thing I have ever seen in my entire life. It was absolutely beautiful. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. It really, really made you feel good inside in ways that I still can’t describe. Here’s what the scene looked like:
At the other end of the park is the museum. A bit hesitant about going into the museum, but probably would have regretted not going. There are two sections to the museum. One part has an area dedicated to showing Hiroshima before and asking for not using nuclear weapons so we can all live in peace. And the other part shows what happened because of the bomb. There are pieces of stuff all over that just boggles your mind. There’s rock that looks unlike any rock I’ve ever seen. There are clocks that are all stopped at the same time. There’s a model that shows that when the bomb detonated it had the same energy as a small, red star. It was just more sensory overload, and such a departure from the stuff that I’m used to seeing over the past months.
After we left the museum, we figured it might be time to start looking for some place to eat. We could have tried to explore the city more, but we hit the major part and I also had absolutely no idea what else there was in the city, so that was part of the decision as well. There was a building across the street from the museum that had a few levels on it and we had thought that we saw there was a restaurant or someplace to eat somewhere inside of it.
Our trouble was finding it, then getting in. We nearly walked the whole way around the place, and didn’t see anything. So we went in, down to the lower level, and still didn’t see anything. Decent amount of people moving about in this odd building that I think was the Hiroshima Conference Center, but I could be mistaken on that.
Anyway, we never found a place to eat, so we walked back by the museum, and then further into what looked like the city part of town. Our goal here, and it was our sole goal, was to find a place to eat. As I’ve said before, there’s almost a stigma against eating in a place that does not specialize in local food. Here’s the problem: I don’t know enough about the local food (again with the lack of research) to be able to first tell what really is local stuff, and then which of the local stuff I should be having. If you’re going to have the local stuff, it’s all going to be in Japanese, so you’ve really got to know what you’re doing. I do have to say that in most preports there is a short segment about foods that we should definitely try, but they go through five to ten dishes in about two or three minutes. That’s not long enough to take notes on if I wanted to. There’s no way I’m going to remember that stuff – there’s no way anybody is going to remember that stuff.
Needless to say, we were looking for anyplace that looked passable. A few things to notice about the photo above. First, I’ve got a map. This was our way of making sure that we were, in fact, getting somewhere. I don’t remember where the map came from, but it did prove to be helpful. Also, the signs in the background are not remotely in English. That makes finding a place to eat a little trickier. It all adds to the experience and the challenge. And as you could tell, it doesn’t look like there’s a restaurant around, but there’s a chance that we’re in the neighborhood of one.
We had actually found one that was more of a café than a place to grab dinner, so we decided to bypass it hoping to find a meal. Little did we know that nearly every eating establishment we would pass in the next few minutes would be a café. Who knew that Hiroshima had so many cafés, and a lack of restaurants? I didn’t, because I didn’t do any research.
We kept passing more and more cafés and becoming slightly (albeit foolishly) concerned that we weren’t going to find some place to eat. Only slightly though. Eventually we stumbled upon what looked like a covered marketplace-type kind of thing that I later learned was called Hondori. It’s basically a shopping arcade that had places to eat in it.
I’m not sure exactly how we found it, but we kept walking through it hoping to find some place to eat. Down towards the end on the right hand side, we found a place to eat that we were both happy with. I’d hesitate to call it an Italian place, but rather more of a Western pasta eatery. You know you’re in a good place when the only other people in it are locals. And we were clearly the only foreigners around… It was actually a nice dinner. Again, the ship food is really becoming repetitive, so this break of pace, albeit non-local food, was very nice and welcome.
From here, we figured that we might as well start to get our way back to the ship. See if you can keep track of how many different modes of transportation and transfers that we had to make to get from Hondori in Hiroshima back to my cabin for the evening.
The taxicab ride we took to the Peace Park cost about what a taxicab ride would cost, so we were looking for some other methods of transportation to get around. Luckily, the map indicated that there were streetcars buzzing around town. I can’t say that I’ve ever ridden a streetcar before. I don’t know where I would have had the opportunity before, but it was here now and the streetcar would take us directly back to the Shinkansen train station, so it was perfect and inexpensive.
What’s important to note is that we had what I would call a good idea what we were doing here, but that’s hardly a sure thing that we’re going to get where we want to. Don’t forget that nothing is in English over here. Just like nothing is written or spoken in Japanese in the United States, it’s the same thing over there.
The streetcars are actually very cool, in my opinion. There is one trick to them though. You have to put money into a thing when you go into the streetcar, and as we saw as people were leaving, you have to enter money to exit as well. These Japanese are fascinated with not wanting you to just be able to leave with no strings attached. They really do want to get you coming and going.
As we were on the streetcar, it really did seem like an efficient way to travel. The tracks were between either side of the lanes of traffic and it’s similar to a subway without all the fuss of going underground and all.
I was enjoying myself so much that I posed for a photo in the pose that I’m always in when I ride streetcars. Also, it was very quiet on the streetcar. LeeAnne and I found ourselves to be the loudest people on the streetcar talking in a tone that was just loud enough to hear ourselves over the sounds of the streetcar.
After managing to get off the streetcar (I make it sound tough, but the train station was the last stop of the line) we went inside to see when we could catch a train back to Kobe. It was just under an hour away, so we decided to do two things: sit and relax, and then figure out the rest of our tickets for the remainder of Japan. We sat in a café and the closest thing they had to an iced latte was an iced coffee. And when I say that this iced coffee was strong – my eyes were tearing it was so strong. I did not know the Japanese like their coffee so strong. That was news to me. It seems like there’s lots that I don’t know about Japan. And I’m sure that this was only the beginning.
After enjoying our beverage with some fellow Semester at Sea travelers that looked vaguely familiar (I may have seen them on the ship) we went to the ticket counter to purchase our tickets for the third evening and last morning in Japan. We asked what the deal was with my ticket in Japanese and they tried to explain it to me, but that did not go well. I’m still not really sure what to do with the ticket. And buying tickets here went light years faster than it did in the Kobe station. It was so much faster and so much easier.
With all our tickets in hand, we went up to the track to try to find which track we should be on, and when the train would be coming. This is the first sign we found:
That wasn’t all that helpful. But we then found another sign that I hoped would be more useful and informative. Well, I’m sure it was informative:
It just wasn’t informative in any language I can figure out. We made our best guess as to the track the train would come and hoped for the best. We were pretty sure we were looking for a train going the opposite direction from which we came, and that the train should be arriving around the time that it said on our ticket. Then a train came, we went on, sat down, and went away with it.
By now it was dark, so the views out of the window weren’t exactly available, so I closed my eyes and tried to get some rest amidst the incessant ear popping. All in all, I’m very glad and happy that I went to Hiroshima, especially because that wasn’t always the plan. It was very different from what I expected it to be, but I was pleasantly surprised at the resolve and fortitude of the people there. It really is required visiting if you go to Japan.
After getting back to the Shin-Kobe station, it would have been really nice to just get right back to the ship quickly. But we had to prove our mastery of the Kobe transportation system, in reverse this time. To show my joy of riding again, I posed on the subway to the Sannomiya Station.
Remembering how we transferred earlier in the day, we went from the JR to the Port Liner and hopped aboard for the last transit back to the ship. We almost made it back without making a boo-boo. The Port Liner’s claim to fame is that it takes you to the airport via the port. That’s pretty much why anyone would use it. It’s not a huge line; there’s no way there would be an express train… Apparently the express train doesn’t stop at the port. That’s something else I learned about Japan today. We watched the ship go by in the window and hoped we wouldn’t travel too far past it. The Port Liner stopped at the next stop, and we waited for a local to take us back to the ship. The wait was only a few minutes. And from now on, I have to make sure that I check what train I get on.
Back on the ship, which was its usual extreme quietness, I went back to the room and packed for the overnight trip I was departing for in the morning. As soon as my backpack was set to go, I went straight to bed, really hoping that I would start feeling better in the morning.
