Folding paper cranes makes me feel a way I've never known before i went to Hiroshima. The Story of Sadako comes into my head every time i fold paper, and this feeling which gets my heart racing takes up my thoughts until i finish. And the more i fold the more i think about it, and the more i think about it, the more i want to make a thousand cranes. It feels a little like defiance, and a little like regret. So i have made the obvious choice, and decided to make a thousand cranes before i leave Japan. I'm expecting a revelation to come at the end or something. Maybe a wish. Here's the beginning, ill keep you updated.
Its taken me so long to write anything down because I've been spending far too much time indulging myself with things that i love: reading; eating; learning guitar; learning Japanese; watching ghost in the shell; sleeping; origami etc. For three whole days i don't think i said a word to anyone, and it was fucking fantastic. Then it started dragging a bit, and i was getting more and more pissed of with Bella Swan's constant self obsessed whining, so i have been mixing up my time with the company of others. I found that Jon and Eugene's new part of town is actually a pretty cool part of town, and i may very well buy myself a new bike soon to go to see them easier. I found that Hoppi is a drink i need to fear rather than love. I hung out with Lucas and helped him make glass balls into earing's, and i went to his wife Aeravi's black light exhibition, where i met a Scottish dude, and a brilliant man called Kenji. I bought paints for my Gundam model, and i started building it. I learnt how to make flowers and frogs and people and boxes out of paper. I mentally prepared myself for my holiday plans over the next six months, including planning the flights, and i learnt how to play Ziggy Stardust on the Guitar. I have enjoyed the last two weeks immensely.
Now however, I'm getting that itching to go back to school, lest i completely forget what I'm doing with my life. I went to the university library today after finding out my scholarship was late, thinking i might as well abuse the facilities I'm being paid to use, and got out some Japanese fiction by Abe and Tanizaki. I thought if they were shit, at least i had tried, and i wouldn't feel guilty only reading Murakami. That's next anyway. Japanese isn't doing to badly either, i've been listening into conversations as much as i can, and ive realised my vocab isn't too bad, i just have a terrible time working out the context of the topic. Also, i've been committing a lot of time to Kanji, which turns out when you make it a challenge, is really fun to learn. I happily decided i had reached the 100 Kanji mark yesterday, and rewarded myself with chocolate from the vat that mum sent me. Sadly the vat is only a handful of Easter eggs now. That's nothing to be proud of.
So what happened over the last two months that has made me too busy to write about i hear you ask? I cant remember, although i took enough pictures that they pretty much tell the story without me having to divulge how i felt about the whole thing. Going on Holiday was going on holiday: great fun, lots of travelling and a lot of uphill cycling. I filled a little book with flyers and tickets and memories that i didn't really need to keep hold of and will never find a right place to store, lets see...
I began the holiday with a god awful cold, but Alex brought a long a small chemist, so i managed to dry up like a prune in no time, which helped me over come my cold with good old fashioned healthy eating and wrapping up warm, i am getting very good at looking after my health... (that bit was for nan, hi nan, miss you, xx) ...and so we took some bikes that our hippie layabout hostel owners allowed tenant's to use for free, and searched around the city for a couple of days, castles, aquariums etc, it was all lovely, but clearly the kind of place you need to visit when the sun is at its best and you have time to island hop. Anyway, i was happy to get back to the mainland.
Nagasaki is a brilliant part of Japan, its a valley covered in hills which are covered in tombs and graveyards, and winding in between the old and new buildings which fill up the bottom is a brilliant and well kept old fashioned tram line. The place is so small that you could walk most of it in a day, but the trams are an important part of the history, and its an experience to see the stops named after the memorial sights all around. The speciality food is Champon, which is like vegetable ramen, with tonnes and tonnes of vegetables, and it is of course, delicious. Aside from temples galore, there's a park with a huge statue of the first samurai to wear boots overlooking the bay, the city and the hills. We found this place by walking vertically for a ridiculous amount of time through a graveyard to what we thought would be a beautiful temple, turns out the temple was the construction site we passed near the bottom. We weren't disappointed, the view was pretty spectacular.
Anyway, this man defied the terms of the samurai, put on some boots and went into merchant business, establishing a new generation of elites wot like to trade. He was a very clever man apparently, and if his statue was anything to go by, a pretty attractive man as well. The war memorials, of which there were many, were also on a hill, along the other side of the city. There was a park, with many statues and a giant fountain. Water is an important part of the atomic bomb memorial process, as water was the only thing thousands of people thought about as they died, and you're not expected to forget that around here. The museum focused on education of atomic warfare, and how ghastly its existence is. The testimonials of survivors were in their hundreds on the walls, and on the TV screens. I try to find words that explain how effective they are, but it makes you quiet with incomprehension, all i can think of is a humiliated "I'm so very sorry".
We met some Americans who were living in Korea at our very lovely dorm, and then got the night bus to Hiroshima. Similar to Nagasaki in an bizarre way, it too is laced with tram tracks, but has a more city feel to it, spread over a larger, flatter area, the tram actually serves as an important mode of transportation. We arrived 3 hours before life began in the morning, so we found the living space, and i began learning how to make cranes. This was more appropriate than i could have wanted it to be, as Hiroshima is where Sadako's story took place, and where hundreds of thousand of paper cranes find themselves sent every year. When you get to the memorial park here, its more apparent that Hiroshima has dedicated itself to the campaign for peace through example. I cant explain in enough words, but everyone HAS to see this place once in their life. It a legend of history, and i don't worry that were never going to forget it. The park is lager than that of Nagasaki, and is crossed by many paths, in the centre of the city, you can see the tall buildings all around. The are is filled with trees, which i could grasp, because the said nothing would be able to grow in Hiroshima for 75 years after the destruction. It only took 6, which they also said was a miracle. In the park is the Sadako statue, and the eternal flame, which they wont put out until nuclear war is no longer a threat. At this point, when i saw huge buildings towering around, trees that aren't supposed to be alive, people cycling to work through what was a nuclear wreckage 60 years ago, and the giant symmetrical memorial river with the museum at the end, i felt like i had swallowed a wrench and it was causing an implosion of sadness. I don't think I'm going to forget that place as long as i live. What i imagined a town dedicated to the memorial of an atomic attack to feel like was nothing in comparison to reality, i understand the phrase "you really have to see it" perfectly.
Anyway, there was lots to do, and so we did it and then went home. Okanomuyaki is the speciality here, and we ate it until we felt sick, its possibly one of the most awesome meals in the world. I had a day of relaxation which i wasted getting absolutely blind drunk on red wine before mum turned up. That's another story anyway, so, with the great sentiment of southern Japan, Peace.
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