Hiroshima is DA BOMB.
Bad bad bad bad joke, sorry.
Hiroshima's been really lovely. A bit sweltering, but that's Japan in July for you.
The night I got here I hung with a girl from Chicago I met at the hostel. She wanted to try one of the restaurants or bars recommended on the maps handed out at the hostel. I wanted to find somewhere cool myself. Directly opposing interests can be fun~ Anyway, we followed the map to where everything seemed to be happening then wandered around for a while trying to find somewhere nice. The problem with most entertainment districts in Japan is that they're mixed up with the red light districts, buildings are ten stories high with different shops, restaurants and bards on each floor (rather than the lay out usual in London of a shop/bar on the ground floor then offices on the higher ones) so you can't look in and see what's going on. Further, even as someone who can read Japanese, figuring out the connotations of certain words can prove difficult: it may say "free information" or "stand" but lurid pink signs suggest foul play. But after a good hour of wandering we managed to avoid getting whipped by naughty nuns or anything to that effect and found a very nice, if somewhat overpriced, bar:
They had a 25 year old whiskey sold for 7,000\, 35 pounds for a shot. I was not /that/ tempted. Conversation was good, the barman very funny, and his friend offered to show us a nice cheap bar he knew about. We go a couple of doors down to a building complete unmarked by flashing pink signs, indeed, complete ignorable, go up to the 3rd floor and find ourselves transported into America in the 70s:
A local friend goes a long way.
I went back to the bar last night and had a great chat with the owner, Takashi:
He's got a really friendly air to him, by any standards one could think of, but this is all the more remarkable for the fact that he gets only 3 and a half hours sleep a night as he works as a salary man during the day and a barkeep during the night. He's obsessed with 70s American culture, Blacksploitation films, Saturday Night Live, Earth, Wind and Fire, etc. drives a Harley Davis on and pulls off an Afro better than one would think possible for a Japanese man. A really decent person. I'm meeting lots of them. Anyone jaded by humanity should get on a plane a discover that nice people exist in every obscure crack in the world.
Besides barhopping, I obviously saw the main... "attraction" seems to miss the point a bit, the main draw to Hiroshima, the atomic dome and peace memorial museum:
The Dome was the building directly below the bomb when it exploded, and the building, once a modernist arcitechtural masterpiece, the pride of Hiroshima, remains as a haunting example of the effects of nuclear war. Against the protest of China and America is was admit ed as a World Heritage Sight in the 90s.
The museum was the more moving of the sights. Located in the Peace Park, I would say it is a rather flawless example of how to tackle so lofty a subject with balance and taste. It starts off giving a history of Hiroshima from the late 1800s up until the war, moves into the development of the bomb, the plans for dropping the bomb and only then the effects of the city, its people and its survivors. The museum really gives every side of the argument, not shying around Japanese war crimes in China and Korea, nor ignoring the plight of forced labourers from the Asian mainland who, working in Hiroshima, suffered as much as the Japanese. It explores the motives for dropping the bomb from the valid - limiting Soviet influence in the Far East, to the outrageous - dropping the bomb as a means of justifying to the tax payers the 2 billion dollars spent developing it. It's one political argument is one that few can disagree with, the complete abolition of nuclear weapons from the planet and world peace and cooperation. I would say it is the duty of all world leaders, especially those of countries posessing　nuclear weapons (at the moment this exclusive and shameful club consists of Russia, America, France, Britain, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and in all likelihood, Israel) to visit the sight so as to really understand exactly what power they hold. So for me it was a deeply sad, informative, and humbling experience. For other it appears it was less so. There's surely something not quite right about taking smiley happy CHIIZU pictures in front of the dome. There's surely something not quite right about a large group of tourists walking around with American flag Hawaiian flower necklaces (seriously... would you see a group of Brits walking around India in pith helmets holding the Union Jack?). There's defiantly everything not right about signing the guestbook with "PEARL HARBOUR!". Crikey.
My most touristy endulgence was a trick to Miyajima island and shrine. Famous for its massive gate:
its a beautiful island in its entirety when you get over the sweltering heat and flocks of (foreign!) tourists.　More impressive than the gate, I found the shrine a supprisingly moving experience, especially considering how many shrines I've seen.
A huge complex, on stilts above the water, though I unfortunately missed high tide, the orange-red pillars holding the complex up create an increadibly powerful visual sensation as you walk down the corridors and see them move at different speeds:
It's a beautiful maze of colour dotted with detail:
The 5 story pagoda was also not bad:
And I also saw other things :3
Misc. Artsy picture:
So that's Hiroshima, a city I was initially ready to paint a simple tourist trap, and packed with tourists it is, it has a lot of depth hidden in its side allies and good conversation to be had with its people. Today I'm off to Okayama, the small city where I did my homestay two years ago. I'm really looking forward to seeing my old host families again, and I'm somewhat cheekily hoping that one will offer me accomidation as I have not yet booked any... but I suppose sleeping in an internet cafe, McDonalds, or on a bench, as many of the increasing numbers of young, hip and homeless are doing, is a bit of a Japanese experience.
I'll leave you with photos I've taken for a London indie fashion magazine that doesn't exist:
Bya! x
Hiroshima's been really lovely. A bit sweltering, but that's Japan in July for you.
The night I got here I hung with a girl from Chicago I met at the hostel. She wanted to try one of the restaurants or bars recommended on the maps handed out at the hostel. I wanted to find somewhere cool myself. Directly opposing interests can be fun~ Anyway, we followed the map to where everything seemed to be happening then wandered around for a while trying to find somewhere nice. The problem with most entertainment districts in Japan is that they're mixed up with the red light districts, buildings are ten stories high with different shops, restaurants and bards on each floor (rather than the lay out usual in London of a shop/bar on the ground floor then offices on the higher ones) so you can't look in and see what's going on. Further, even as someone who can read Japanese, figuring out the connotations of certain words can prove difficult: it may say "free information" or "stand" but lurid pink signs suggest foul play. But after a good hour of wandering we managed to avoid getting whipped by naughty nuns or anything to that effect and found a very nice, if somewhat overpriced, bar:
They had a 25 year old whiskey sold for 7,000\, 35 pounds for a shot. I was not /that/ tempted. Conversation was good, the barman very funny, and his friend offered to show us a nice cheap bar he knew about. We go a couple of doors down to a building complete unmarked by flashing pink signs, indeed, complete ignorable, go up to the 3rd floor and find ourselves transported into America in the 70s:
A local friend goes a long way.
I went back to the bar last night and had a great chat with the owner, Takashi:
He's got a really friendly air to him, by any standards one could think of, but this is all the more remarkable for the fact that he gets only 3 and a half hours sleep a night as he works as a salary man during the day and a barkeep during the night. He's obsessed with 70s American culture, Blacksploitation films, Saturday Night Live, Earth, Wind and Fire, etc. drives a Harley Davis on and pulls off an Afro better than one would think possible for a Japanese man. A really decent person. I'm meeting lots of them. Anyone jaded by humanity should get on a plane a discover that nice people exist in every obscure crack in the world.
Besides barhopping, I obviously saw the main... "attraction" seems to miss the point a bit, the main draw to Hiroshima, the atomic dome and peace memorial museum:
The Dome was the building directly below the bomb when it exploded, and the building, once a modernist arcitechtural masterpiece, the pride of Hiroshima, remains as a haunting example of the effects of nuclear war. Against the protest of China and America is was admit ed as a World Heritage Sight in the 90s.
The museum was the more moving of the sights. Located in the Peace Park, I would say it is a rather flawless example of how to tackle so lofty a subject with balance and taste. It starts off giving a history of Hiroshima from the late 1800s up until the war, moves into the development of the bomb, the plans for dropping the bomb and only then the effects of the city, its people and its survivors. The museum really gives every side of the argument, not shying around Japanese war crimes in China and Korea, nor ignoring the plight of forced labourers from the Asian mainland who, working in Hiroshima, suffered as much as the Japanese. It explores the motives for dropping the bomb from the valid - limiting Soviet influence in the Far East, to the outrageous - dropping the bomb as a means of justifying to the tax payers the 2 billion dollars spent developing it. It's one political argument is one that few can disagree with, the complete abolition of nuclear weapons from the planet and world peace and cooperation. I would say it is the duty of all world leaders, especially those of countries posessing　nuclear weapons (at the moment this exclusive and shameful club consists of Russia, America, France, Britain, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and in all likelihood, Israel) to visit the sight so as to really understand exactly what power they hold. So for me it was a deeply sad, informative, and humbling experience. For other it appears it was less so. There's surely something not quite right about taking smiley happy CHIIZU pictures in front of the dome. There's surely something not quite right about a large group of tourists walking around with American flag Hawaiian flower necklaces (seriously... would you see a group of Brits walking around India in pith helmets holding the Union Jack?). There's defiantly everything not right about signing the guestbook with "PEARL HARBOUR!". Crikey.
My most touristy endulgence was a trick to Miyajima island and shrine. Famous for its massive gate:
its a beautiful island in its entirety when you get over the sweltering heat and flocks of (foreign!) tourists.　More impressive than the gate, I found the shrine a supprisingly moving experience, especially considering how many shrines I've seen.
A huge complex, on stilts above the water, though I unfortunately missed high tide, the orange-red pillars holding the complex up create an increadibly powerful visual sensation as you walk down the corridors and see them move at different speeds:
It's a beautiful maze of colour dotted with detail:
The 5 story pagoda was also not bad:
And I also saw other things :3
Misc. Artsy picture:
So that's Hiroshima, a city I was initially ready to paint a simple tourist trap, and packed with tourists it is, it has a lot of depth hidden in its side allies and good conversation to be had with its people. Today I'm off to Okayama, the small city where I did my homestay two years ago. I'm really looking forward to seeing my old host families again, and I'm somewhat cheekily hoping that one will offer me accomidation as I have not yet booked any... but I suppose sleeping in an internet cafe, McDonalds, or on a bench, as many of the increasing numbers of young, hip and homeless are doing, is a bit of a Japanese experience.
I'll leave you with photos I've taken for a London indie fashion magazine that doesn't exist:
Bya! x
posted by Domuseswords at
12:22
1 Comments:
I've thoroughly enjoyed reading the blog despite the frustration of reading from the bottom up and spoiling all your witty links to the pictures. Also, Buena Vista Social Club is perhaps a questionable soundtrack to the high-energy culture you're absorbing.
I sincerely look forward to further posts and hope that my enthusiasm compensates for those times when you feel deflated and question whether writing so extensively will be appreciated. Consequently, I feel obliged to update you on school happenings. Your speech went down a treat, but was most definitely overshadowed by Deville's (surprise, surprise) GCSEs rap which included all the swearing and "Let's get choong, yeah, fuck doing coursework" (including appropriate gestures. Perhaps his embarassed apology to Dawn didn't quite make up for the corruption of the students of year seven. It's a shame that you missed the song (no doubt, you'll get a copy of the lyrics) as it was well-received.
I'm now contemplating the function of the disabled sign next to the word verification box and also hoping that my comment will be of some merit either as a precious piece of communication with life back home or as a reminder of your most "bisexual" friend.
Yours forever,
Finn.
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