Japan Is Very Cool

I am enjoying my stay in Japan very much. Plus it is proving to not be as expensive as I had originally thought it would be. Thanks to Brian and letting me stay at his place for free and helping me to find a cheap place to stay in Hiroshima, from where I type this message.

If you ever decide to visit Japan I suggest that you get a Japan Rail Pass. You can only get them outside of Japan. It is fairly expensive to get mine cost $512 U.S. But you can ride any JR line train at no additional cost. This includes the Shinkansen/Bullet trains that can be expensive and I believe that a rather long trip will cost you around $250 U.S. and I have taken 4 Shinkansen train rides and multiple city train trips and all you have to do is show your pass and through the gate you go. But I suggest that you get a reserved seat, but all you have to do is show your pass at the ticket agent and tell them where you want to go and that is is. Too easy.

I have been pretty busy getting out and seeing as much of Japan as I can. Since I fing this place to be cool and interesting, it does not take much for me to go, Wow.

I went to the Himeji (him-ay-gee) Castle and that was very interesting as well as REALLY FREAKIN HOT. The castle was built I think in the 1400s and has been kept very well. There is a moat that surround the castle and with some very cool practices like arrow slits and secret places for troops to hide if the castle were ever taken, it never was, but it is 6 stories high and made complete of wood with metal nails and such like. Very interesting, but the big let down was after you climb 6 flights of stairs, that were fairly steep, you get to the top (there is no air conditioning in this place) where the emporor used to stay and all there was to see was this small monument to him and the view of the city. That bothered me, but it was still interesting to see regardless.

Outside the castle grounds there was the castle gardens and this was a very nice spot. Huge carp swimming in the ponds and streams and, as you might know, the garden was meticulously maintained and glorious. There were many different types of plantlife and it was a good time. Very very nice spot in the world.

The castle gardens.

The next day Brian took me to a free concert on the beach with live local bands and they were all just great. There were at least 3 different blues bands. Hear that Dale? All of the musicians played very well and could play the blues. No slouches. If you closed your eyes you would not think you were in Japan. It was kind of odd to hear blues music surrounded by Japanese people... and a few white dudes to.

At the beach concert.

The next day Brian wanted to show me around Kobe and I had met the lovely Konaco at a restraunt a couple of nights before and we met up to go shopping. She is a very nice woman and is studying to become a nurse. We had a very good time wandering around the shopping areas of Kobe, eating lunch and dancing to Jazz in the toy store. That night we had dinner and drinks too. I hope to see her again before I leave Japan.

Thom and Konaco

Yesterday I went to the Hiroshimma Peace Memorial Museum. Wow. If ever you think that Atomic weapons are the way to make peace in the world, come to this place it will make you think twice about war and the hideous weapons used on mankind.

Make no doubt that the Japanese are well aware of their buildup for war and that they were a warring country set on taking over parts of the world. They realize that the lead up to the dropping of the atomic bomb was one started by them and making war on the U.S. and other countries.

I think too as an American, I can see how more lives were probably saved, at least American lives, due to the A-bombs, as every Japanese person 13 years and older was being trained in how to fight. With a gun, a spear, a sword, whatever it took as the government was aware that their country could very well be invaded.

But the travesty of seeing in horrific detail the damage caused to innocent people; women, children, everyone and everything within the hypoblast zone, will remain with me for a long time. Seeing a woman whose burns from the radiation where in the same shape as the pattern of the fabric on her gown. Or the man whose hair, that was left, was in the shape of his hat and his skin burned as if with a blowtorch. People with skin hanging off of their body. Not unlike a bad sun burn and the skin peals, but here the multiple layers were dangling off the body. The pictures drawn of seeing people clamoring to get to water, any water, to drink and having to crawl over corpses and other wounded to shove their head into a trough.

Hiroshima has done a tremendous job of gathering itself together to become The City of Peace and ask for the abolishment of all atomic weapons. They know too well the horror that comes from being the target of such a tremendously powerful weapon.

The A-Bomb dome. Kept in, as much as possible, the condition it was in after the blast.

The Peach Memorial. Many people prayed and left flowers of burned incense here. It will put a lump in your throat for sure.

The good thing about the museum was that I met two lovely young women who were in Hiroshima on their days off. Junko and Mahwami were just waiting for a handsome American to wander through the museum with them. But they got me, and we had a good time exploring the museum and the city.

Mahwami and Junko in downtown Hiroshima.

Later that night we went to eat at this cool restraunt where they grill up your food right in front of you. Such gooood food. And then the kareoke! You can go to a Kareoke bar and get a private room that has a sound system, a couple of microphones, and a huge catalog of kareoke songs, there were a lot in English too. At this place, you rent the room for 500 yen and hour, but if you rent for 2 hours you get 2000 yen (about 20 bucks) worth of drinks free. So we had a great time drinking, singing, dancing and being goofy and letting our inhibitions go as we made fools of ourselves to each other. What a great time I had with them. But, like all good things the stupid last train was coming and they had to go. ---The trains in Japan end around midnight and if you miss your train, you either find some place to stay, take a taxi home (which aint cheap), or sleep on a bench somewhere, or stay with Thom. I like that option. But they went back to their hotel but not without a good parting peck on the cheek for each of them. Did I say I had a good time with them? Good. Because I did.