The train came to a stop. I had arrived.
I left the shinkansen and stepped into a terminal that looked basically like any other. That strange itching in my teeth was just fading. I wouldn’t be seeing the city today—I had a mission to get to my hostel in Miyajimaguchi by three o’clock. I found the right local train and took the twenty minute trip to Miyajimaguchi. The hostel I had booked was called Backpackers Miyajima. I had booked it at the last minute, but figured it must logically be close to Miyajima (a well-known island), one of my destinations on this trip. As the train took me towards Miyajimaguchi I realized I really hadn’t been in a city quite like this before. There was so much GREEN here, houses and neighborhoods just hugging the hills. My train arrived, I stepped into Miyajimaguchi. The first thought that came to me was that I’d arrived in some sort of sea breezy ocean resort type place. Upon further inspection, it turned out that I was at least partially right; a compact and vibrant sprawl of nice restaurants and cafés had sprung up to accommodate the large number of tourists who passed through on the way to the island.
Miyajimaguchi is just small. It sits on a bay. Across that bay is Miyajima island, towering out of the sea in all its mountainous, virgin-forested glory—one of the most sacred spots in all of Japan. The famous ‘floating’ torii gates that sit in the water before it appear to denote the entire island as a sacred place, not just the great Itsukushima shrine upon it. On Miyajima there are no maternity wards or cemeteries, for no one is permitted to be born or die there, in accordance with traditional Shinto beliefs. Since ancient the times the island itself has been worshipped as a god. And there it was, sitting across the bay. I walked down a clean, pretty street and made my way toward the ferry terminal, following directions I’d jotted onto notepaper. I found my hostel easily and checked in awhile later. The hostel is essentially beach side property. The owner greeted me as I stepped in for the first time, an ultra friendly and easy going guy. He speaks very good English… in fact, he taught Japanese in the states for a time. I told him in Japanese that my Japanese wasn’t very good. He just sort of shrugged and said “I understand you, sounds good to me.” Wow, this place was so relaxed and casual. Already my life in Shizuoka seemed more conservative and serious in comparison. This really WAS vacation.
I left my bags in the hosteI’s social room. I had arrived a bit early, so before checking in I went and found a place to eat lunch. It was vacation so I ordered a special lunch dish at the restaurant I wandered into. I read on the menu that they only make 20 of those dishes a day. Sushi, tempura, udon, pickes, some sort of thick sea food dish, it was great.
A while later, when I actually checked in, a British guy named Tom was doing it at the same time. We were put in the same Japanese style room (meaning tatami mats and futons instead of beds… in other words, pretty much like my own bedroom back in Shizuoka). I was glad to see this, because I’ve grown much more accustomed to and comfortable with sleeping on the floor with my beloved futon. Tom was just visiting Japan for three weeks and I figured out in about ten seconds that our planned schedules matched up and we were both in the area for the same amount of time, so we decided to travel together. I guess you’d say we clicked pretty fast.
We went down and asked our host, Hisa, where would be a good place to go for the rest of the day. He said, Iwakuni, home of a beautiful bridge called the kintai-kyo. That sounded cool, so we were back on the train and off to Iwakuni. When we got there I caught us a bus to this bridge, but not before we saw a poster for it. To my delight I’d been looking at this exact bridge in a book on the shinkansen that morning and moaning to James how cool it would be to go to this bridge, but I thought it was too far out from my destination to be fit into my plans. Well, we were a twenty minute bus ride from it right now! We got there and the bridge, five massive arches over a wide river, was every bit as fantastic now that it was in front of me, more so, than the pictures had suggested. So over the bridge we walked. On the other side was a complex of beautiful gardens fully burst into flowers, shrines, ancient homesteads (old samurai quarters) and a castle to gaze upon on top of a nearby mountain. It was quiet there with few visitors on that day. We explored that for awhile and then crossed the bridge back. Tom mentioned how he was looking forward to a relaxing with a beer when we got back. I told him he sounded authentically British, then my mind gravitated to the same thing. Guess I’m authentically Nova Scotian. 
Fast forward a bit, we arrive back at the hostel, there’s a nice looking group having dinner at the table in the lobby. We all say hi. One of them was from London, Ontario. Others were all from parts of England, a few more from Canada and one of them, Yoshi (who’d taken it upon himself to do the cooking) was Japanese. He was perfectly bilingual. Anyway, Tom and I got beer from the magic hostel vending machine, from which cans of beer and ‘chu-hi’ (Japanese alcoholic drink similar to a cooler) were inexplicably cheaper than the store. In fact, no one in the hostel could believe it (this naturally led to three fairly intoxicating nights). We all chilled out and eventually had a bunch gathered in the common room, which has a corner filled permanently with paper cranes made by guests.
Fast forward again, we all conk out on our tatami mats and awake the next morning. Tom and I are ready for the trip to the heart of the city. This was a day I had waited for since reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes when I was a kid in school, and now it was happening. I didn’t know how to feel yet. I looked at one of the hostel’s cards before leaving. It noted that all the papers in the hostel were made from recycled paper cranes. Hiroshima came off to me as a relatively eco-conscious place, and at any rate there was quite a bit of locally produced food and drink in Miyajimaguchi. In fact, we even bought some of our alcoholic drinks, a plum liqueur called umeboshi (with all the plums still in the big jar, fermented for 160 days) and sake, from a store just down the street that made them right there.
We hopped on the train and were off for Hiroshima station. In twenty minutes we arrived, grabbed a map, and began to walk. The city is beautiful. Later, after the peace museum, I would see the lovely canals, which run through the city like the veins on the back of your hand, in a different way. I would see them, in brief flashes, filled with bodies. Hiroshima is a city that was raised out of the ashes.
We began to sense that the Peace Park was close when more trees became visible, but nothing—no description or picture—could have prepared me for the sight that greeted me as we stepped into view of the area. There was a massive tree, and drenched in sunlight above it, standing against the blue sky, was the skeletal top of the A-bomb dome (genbaku dome). I was suddenly hit so hard emotionally that I almost didn’t know what was happening to me.
On my left was a sign.
At 8:15, on the morning of August 6th, 1945, the first atomic bomb to be used against humankind exploded about 500 metres above Shima hospital in Saiku-Machi, utterly destroying all people and property below it. Among the burned ruins stood the skeletal remains of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotions hall (Now the A-bomb dome). A grim reminder of what had been.
I looked back up to the dome, and we walked toward it. The large tree stood before it and as we worked our way around I saw the full twisted ruins of the hall. It was then that I realized they had left it just as it had been, the bricks and rubble that had fallen to the ground have been left there, but around it they have grown a lawn, and trees. It is a ruin that stands isolated against green of foliage, and against the sky, to represent what happened here over sixty years ago. Glancing around at the surrounding sight it truly dawned on me how powerful and moving this image was--that around this twisted, crumbled skeleton, they had built a park. There can be few sights quite like it in the world, I think. A river ran through the canal before us and I walked towards the bridge. I was stopped by a young man on it, who asked for a donation. I didn’t know exactly for what yet, but I donated anyway. I filled out a sheet with my name and nationality, and then he gave me a paper to read. “Later,” he said, maybe sensing that I wanted to continue on my way. I did read that paper later. On it was written an appeal for peace by a woman who was fifteen when the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, who lost her family members and friends that did not die in the detonation when they went into the ruins to search for survivors. It was a call to action against modern warfare, a bitter remembrance of the Imperial government that brought Japan into war in the first place all those years ago, a recognition that most wars are raised in the pursuit of money for those who start and maintain them, not for the good of the people, and a comment on Bush’s ridiculous so called “war on terror”.
The end reads: “I was a girl devoted to the emperor system during wartime. But I changed to a war-hating woman experiencing the Atomic bomb and the defeat of Japanese imperialism. We, workers and common folks, which consists of the greater part of the population, must unite and stand up to make this world peaceful and affluent, (one) which values human dignity.”
The organization itself is a united group of A-bomb survivor’s children (and grandchildren), which has been ongoing since 1970. They are dedicated to actively opposing wars all over the world, and for getting better health care for those who still today suffer the effects of radiation that have been passed on to them. The group was conceived when the U.S. went to war with Vietnam, which the Japanese government supported despite the wishes of the people.
We crossed the bridge and entered the peace park itself, an expanse that seems like something that was perhaps born out of some sort of collective human imagination, in a time when gun fire echoed all around a fires raged though cities and muddy battle fields. The children’s memorial is what I walked to first, because there was no other choice for me—I was drawn there immediately. Sadako Sasaki, who was two years old when the bomb was dropped and who died in 1955, is memorialized in metal atop this monument, arms outstretched, the framed outline of a paper crane in her hands. This was built when Sadako’s story, of making over a thousand paper cranes in the hopes of getting better as she died slowly from leukemia, spread throughout Japan and eventually the world. A movement began, by her former classmates and schoolchildren across the country to create a monument in honor of the children killed as a result of the bombing. The Children’s Peace Memorial is the result of this. Around the monument are many large glass boxes housing paper cranes sent from all over Japan and the world. These arrive on a constant basis, making it a monument surrounded by vibrant color. I had to take some time there, to absorb it. There were small birds on the metal crane attached to the peace bell. They flew off when I rung it and then returned right away, as if they knew something.
Across the road is the flame of peace, burning on a white concrete platform, lit from a sacred fire that has been burning on Miyajima island for over 1200 years. It will be extinguished only when all nuclear weapons have been eliminated from the earth. Surrounding all of this are the transplated and sculpted “phoenix trees” which were growing a mile from the hypocenter of the blast and are still scorched on one side. Finally, continuing past the flame of peace, we came to the Memorial cenotaph, which is a sort of stone arch. There is a stone box beneath it, in which a register of all those who died as a result of the bombing are recorded. This register is still added to, as new names are often coming forward and adding to the 140,000 dead. Standing there, with the flame of peace burning in the distance, seen through the arch, and the A-bomb dome visible behind it, is a strong and emotional experience. In front of the cenotaph is the central message of Hiroshima, written in eight languages. At the top of the message it reads: “Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil.”
I looked from the message, to the stone box filled with the names of the dead; 140,000 people. 140,000 individuals, with their own dreams, hopes, loves and fears wiped from the earth by conflagration and radiation poisoning. I thought of how so many of these people would have been just like the ones I know—children just like my students, just like the people I see every day going to school, laughing, chatting, strolling, working. They were going about their day beneath a blue sky when an airplane flew over head and everything ended. In the distance I could see the A-bomb dome, and I could estimate the place in the sky above it where the bomb detonated. I think about how it could happen anywhere. And I think about how Hiroshima does not hate because it learned a long time ago that hate does not lead to peace, has never and will never lead to peace. It is a city that knows all too well where the path of war leads, and that this path does not lead to freedom, only death, hatred and discrimination. As one of the survivors wrote in his memoirs: “Looking at the endless line of wounded before me, I didn’t have time to think of right and wrong, or good and evil.”
We made our way to the hall of remembrance. It was free, similar to the peace museum afterwards, which only cost 50 yen (It’s not about the money, they want the world to see this place, though I don’t even know how they keep the lights one with that kind of entrance fee.) In the hall of remembrance you walk down a spiraling hall. I didn’t know what was at the end of it. As you go down, it is as quiet as a tomb. There are small stations along the way with simple information written in Japanese and English, a history of the events leading up to the bombing. It begins with the words 'In the 20th century, Japan walked the path of war'. Combined, these brief stations tell the story of Hiroshima, but those first lines were to be the start of the nearly 5 hours I spend between the hall of remembrance and the peace museum. At the bottom of the spiral hallway, we entered a large circular room. On the walls around it are 140,000 carved stone tiles (one for each person killed by the A-bomb). They are individually etched by hand to make a 360 degree panoramic of the ruined city from a standpoint at the hypocenter. I didn’t take pictures because, like many things, it can only be seen to be believed and felt. There are twelve pillars in the room, apparently symbolizing the link between the time of war and the lives we live today (according to the description available there). In the centre of the room is a fountain that looks like a clock stopped at 8:15: zero hour. The fountain is dedicated to all those who died begging for a drink following the bomb. I left the room fairly stunned. After that there is the wall of remembrance which constantly flashes the faces and names of all those who died and for whom pictures could be found or located in archives. It is designed to show that there were real people there, all of them wiped out in an instant. There is an amazing computer bank where, through last names, you can find the profile of anyone you wish, including their picture. There is another library upstairs where you can do this and more.
I’ll jump ahead now to the peace museum. I didn’t expect this to take me four hours to go through, but it did, (and does, especially if you want to read everything.) To summarize, the huge museum reviews the history of events leading up to the bombing itself, the details of exactly what happens in an atomic explosion, ever fact possible about the bombing itself, artifacts (even the human shadow (carbon imprint) on the steps of the Sumitomo bank), the effects of radiation short and long term, Hiroshima’s action and movements towards peace and abolishment of nuclear weapons, the state of nuclear weapons in the world today and which countries have them.
The museum is extremely graphic, and this lends to the power of the truth, because the reality of what happened was graphic. The truth is that, despite what some may believe, the bomb didn’t explode and vaporize everyone and that was it. Only those within a couple miles of the hypocenter typically died instantly, thousands upon thousands had their flesh melted or skin seared off but did not die right away (or at all, in some cases), thousands have suffered from mutations, cancers, fetal malformations, and other ailments from the radiation; thousands died from thirst and hunger in the time directly following the detonation. It was here that I learned of the rivers becoming filled with bodies as people with their skin hanging off in melted ribbons plunged into the water to try and end their suffering, or fell into the water and drowned as they tried to drink, or, also likely, tried to drown themselves in their unimaginable pain. Today, very elderly people complaining of pain inside still occasionally have objects removed from their bodies that were driven into them like bullets during the blast when they were children. There were pictures to show people the days after the bombing, nothing was hidden. The city wants everyone to understand exactly what happens with nuclear weapons. In honesty, I spent the whole day trying to hold back tears, but I could never identify exactly why. I was able to read Sadako’s story of the thousand paper cranes again, and for the first time saw the pictures of her, provided by her family, that documented her struggle. I saw the actual paper cranes that she made, a photo of her proudly wearing the silk kimono that her mother sewed for her before she died. In a time when we still don’t seem to understand that war is more than just a series of dusty explosions and flashes in the night coming to us through our television screens, these are the things the world needs to see.
After four hours I came to the final exhibit. It is a black and white picture of the ruins, blown up to about ten feet high and five feet wide. At the bottom is written a poem about how it was said that nothing would grow in Hiroshima for seventy years, but how when green came forth the people found courage and hope in their hearts. In the picture is a plant growing in a mound of rubble, about a year after the bomb. In the rubble, you can make out a half burnt child’s shoe. It is the final thing you see in the museum before you walk into a sunlit hall that looks out over the peace park. My head was so full of thoughts and emotions that I couldn’t really bother to keep track of it all. I could only look out the window in respect and awe of this city, which was built back out of the ground from nothing, that came back despite the odds just like that plant in the rubble, and which was built in the name of peace and not hate, with an eye on a future of what could be, not curled up like a fist in resentment.
I was a bit zombiefied, not really knowing what to think, but Tom and I went out for okinomiyaki, which is Hiroshima’s specialty food. We went to the contemporary art museum, but it was closed. I was okay with that though. We got back to the hostel that evening and I was trying to push my feelings back into fun mode. I felt ready to relax after that day. Yoshi, who I mentioned before, was in the midst of cooking a big spaghetti meal for us with clams, mussels and a squid that he had caught earlier. Yoshi is a great guy. He was Japan’s Thai boxing champion, believe it or not, and wants to open a restaurant someday. He loves to cook food for people.
So we all grabbed some vending machine beer and had a big spaghetti feast. We were having a good time, just like the night before, but something kept bothering me. After the magnitude of what I had seen today, of which everyone there had seen already, I just felt like I wanted to talk about it, to discuss the meaning and importance of this place. Then I realized, that this was the meaning: laughing, sharing food, and sharing a good time with people, enjoying the peace that exists in this part of the world. We were playing cards in the common room, us English speakers, and there were some Japanese guys reading by themselves. They looked a bit shy and left out—I assumed they didn’t speak much English. But why on earth should there be any reason for them to be left out? I went over and asked them if they’d like to play with us. I used my very broken Japanese and they used their very broken English, and as ex-pats and travelers can discover everywhere they may be, that’s often all that’s really needed. Sitting around the table, carrying on and playing cards, whatever we were playing metamorphosing into a drinking game, the language barrier melting away with every gesture and knowing smile, I remembered how much I love to do this. We don’t need to stamp all over this earth or consume crazily to enjoy a peaceful world; maybe we just need each other. We need music, like the guitar and the big bass violin leaning in the corner that Hisa came in and started to play, we need to laugh and accept that our differences are what keeps the story of our lives interesting. I came back to the hostel wanting to be serious about the meaning of what I had seen, but the truth is that the meaning is to stick together and enjoy what we have. I knew that once, I always have, but I needed Hiroshima to remind me of what I’m thankful for, of what life should all be about.
Eventually we all parted for our rooms and I pulled my futon out in the dark and fell into an easy, dreamless sleep.
I woke up at 9:00. It was time for Miyajima. We decided to forego breakfast and eat on the island. We jumped on the ferry and were off. Miyajima, summarily, is a piece of paradise. We had a full day here, we grabbed some breakfast (kikidon, fresh caught local oysters, cooked and served on a bed of rice). We explored the village there. Tame deer live all over the island, with no natural predators, and walk the streets and roads freely. The main event was our hike up Mount Misen, the tallest peak. What a hike. Almost the whole way up, we were walking on ancient stairs hand carved out of solid rock, smoothed by passage of time and stretching up the mountain side. We passed enormous boulders sitting in the forest like hulking guardians and sheer rocks cliffs that were so big I didn’t know I was passing them until I got a distance away and looked back… and up. At the very summit, we were able to climb to the absolute highest rock and the view was spectacular. We could see the Seto inland sea, which is probably only visible from that point, since Miyajima is a sparsely inhabited island, with its inhabitants just mostly in the front village where our ferry landed. We also had a 360 degree vantage point towards the mainland and the mountains of the island itself, vast and luminous in the early May sunlight.
Coming down was easier and we went to a grand temple at the bottom called Daisho-in. I was admittedly starving again and probably hurried us along faster than Tom wanted to go, but we got to see the Buddhist sand mandala on display (they are usually ritualistically destroyed after being completed) and also, and this was a real treat, watch some of the monks silently working on another, new sand mandala. This is a process of pushing different color sand around into patterns using only giant pins to make a grand mural representing various Buddhist themes. To be able to watch a bit felt like a Zen experience in itself. It takes a long, long time to finish, you can imagine.
Lastly, we went through the grand Itsukushima shrine where, with the famous “floating” torii gates in the background, I finally got to see the world’s oldest Noh theatre stage (the study of traditional Japanese theatre during university, including Noh, was what originally sparked my interest in the country). I could only imagine it hundreds of years ago, at night, with no electric lights on the distant mainland, everything lit only by the glow of lanterns, and seeing the actor emerge onto the stage in full garb and mask while the choir chants behind and the sounds of samisen and drum drift on the air behind, the audience sitting in the very walkway I am standing on, watching it all. 
Eventually, exhausted, we just sat on the beach and watched the tide. I saw some sea sponge on the beach for the first time ever (well, I thought that was interesting). We returned to the hostel. We get back and Yoshi’s cooking up a storm, there are a lot of people that have arrived, and everyone’s been told about this impromptu toga party that was conceived the day before (which we made a poster for without telling the owner… he ended up being fine with it, even though we were going to be using our futon bedsheets). We ate okonomiyaki, yakitori and takoyaki, all whipped up right there on the busy, food covered table in the lobby, and that night we did indeed have a toga party, after a few of us spent some time coaxing the other guests that were probably thinking that they had picked the crazy hostel. I knew we came from all over, and later we’d leave for all over—we had different jobs, professions and lives, but that night there were Japanese, Russian, British, Canadian (well, just me), Finnish and Chinese all putting their pride aside and having a great time, wearing starch white bed sheets, laughing at themselves, and sharing food and drink. I had that sense again that this is the type of thing that is important. We’re all just human beings, no more and no less, and in the end what we have is each other.
It was a somewhat sad affair leaving the next day and saying goodbye to everyone. But that is the nature of travelling, really. Sometimes you build strong connections with people very quickly, and then you all split. It’s the way it’s always been. Hiroshima, this time, was where I found a great group and had a great time. I can’t think of a better place to celebrate life and the joy of people—the simple good we can achieve together instead of the bad. On the day, if it ever comes—if the city’s dream ever comes true and the last nuclear weapon is eliminated forever from the earth—Hiroshima is where the party will be.
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