Where in the World Is Marta Senn-Diego? Part Three: You Don't Know What You're Misen

I bid a fond farewell to Kyoto en masse: to Mr. Peanut, to Pink Momo, to Gion, to Kinka and Ginka-kujis, to the sakura that I would unfortunately miss the chance to see in full bloom. But the time had come and I was on the train and off to Hiroshima!

From my journal the night I arrived in Hiroshima City: "Long day. Very long. Goodnight." I devoted about ten hours to riding the JR local trains, at times standing the whole ride between cities because commuters were packed onto the trains. No gloved platform attendants were needed, thankfully, but it got a little tight at times. You wouldn't think just riding the train all day would wear you out but I was dead on my feet and cursing the world for too few crosswalks in Hiroshima by the time I made it to my hostel.

When they teach American high school students about Nagasaki and Hiroshima, they cover the very basics. It's almost like we're too embarrassed to admit the effect of the bombs, so at least in my case, the whole ordeal was glossed over in a very uncomfortable couple of classes. But nobody talks about how well Hiroshima has recovered and what a lively and diverse town it is! Nobody talks about the magnitude of the Peace Park and how every monument erected stands for the injured or dead victims or just in honor and hope for peace. To America, Hiroshima stopped in its tracks the day the bombs fell, but to the citizens of Hiroshima, the city is a phoenix and it's singing a song for the end of nuclear war.

Hiroshima's a great example of not turning your back on the past, but rather recognizing it's importance and devoting the future to never going backwards.

Reminders of the past sit mesh with the present

After I finally settled all my stuff on my bunk bed in the hostel, I introduced myself to two other young women in the room, Sara and Hannah (you know, I'm just going to write it like "Hana" for the sake of symmetry. She never told me how to spell it so I can feign ignorance. Nobody tell her!) are both Americans from Arizona and Kansas respectively. They are also a vegetarian and a picky eater respectively: they told me about how they'd been struggling to find something they could both eat in each city they've been to so far on their backpacking trip. I was just trying to picture them both in an izakaya and they told me they'd been to a bar with lots of little skewers of things on sticks...needless to say, they ended up giving their generous leftovers to the guys sitting nearby. Fortunately, Japan knows how to dish up some good veggies, so the girls were happy.

They also told me they were headed to Kyoto after Hiroshima and here, after 10 hours of talking to no one, I launched into a diatribe of where they should go, what they should do, and how to take enjoy Gion without being a camera-thrusting douchebag. (Ladies, if you ever read this, sorry about yakking your ears off, but I hope you enjoyed Kyoto as much as I did!)

In the morning, I happened to see a tide chart in the hostel lobby and decided that I'd change my initial plans to see the famous "Floating Gate" in the afternoon and go to Miyajima Island in the morning while the tide was up and the Floating Gate, Otorii, was well..."floating."

You've probably seen it in every Google search of Japan: a big red Japanese gate standing in water like a bather wading along the beach.

For just 800 yen, I got a day pass to ride the city trams and the ferry to and from the island. It was a slow trip, but a great way to see the city. It was a beautiful day, too, and people were all over Miyajima. Mixed in with the crowd and begging for food were, you guessed it, deer!

I know, I know, after Nara you'd think I'd be over them. Nope. Miyajima is a wildlife lover's dream, full of lovely, Disney-esque, bitey deer. Fortunately, I didn't get bumped, kicked, or bitten like I was at Nara. Island life has made these deer very chill.



I walked the whole complex and got a good look at the temple ground and the beautiful Otorii itself.
On the island, there's a steep mountain called Mt. Misen: on top of this mountain, a Buddhist master ages ago spent 100 days meditating in a secret Buddhist practice and founded the local Buddhist sect.

The fire that he meditated over is kept burning today, centuries later! The flame is called "The Flame of Love" because they like to compare it's burning with the burning of desire. However, I sort of like the endurance of peace instead. Why the leap? Who needs to jump that shark? Anyway, this flame was also the pilot light for the peace flame in the Peace Park. Cool, right?

To get up there, you have two options: ball up and hike it or be like me and ride the "Rope Way." It's really two series of funiculars that take you up to the summit. As you ride, you look out the windows at the primeval forest which is considered a national treasure and has never been felled so it's still in its natural state! Once you're up there, you get a gorgeous view of Hiroshima and the beaches below. There are about a dozen or so different shrines to visit as well a number of very interesting natural rock formations including the "whale rock" which looks like a beached whale and comes with a blowhole and what's called "Scabies Rock." Rumor has it, if you have a skin disease, it's removed when you walk by the rock, but if you don't, you'll actually gain the disease!

I walked past it twice just to be sure.

A little passive aggressive, no?

As I was riding the Rope Way back down, I was in a car with four other elderly Japanese. I'd sort of lagged behind a group of Americans, not because I didn't want to be associated but because the guys were big and they reeked of B.O. As we left the platform in the car the mountain dropped off suddenly below and we all let out a very startled/thrilled cry like you would as you crest a roller coaster.

Back on the ground, I decided I'd better head back to town while it was still daylight to see the Peace Park. Right now, the Atomic Dome is undergoing stability surveys, so it's covered in wiring and mesh and framework. Still, the gravity of it weighs as heavy as the bricks that still lie where they fell decades ago. Across the river in the park, I found something that actually really affected me for a little while.

When I was in middle school, I found a book in the English classroom. It was about a Japanese girl who was exposed to radiation when she was two and later developed leukemia. While she was sick, she started making paper cranes hoping that if she made 1000, she'd be cured. She died before she finished.

I had no idea that there was a monument in her honor and the honor of children like her. The statue is a girl holding a framework crane. Under the monument is a bell you can ring for peace and behind are large glass cases full of cranes people have donated.

After seeing that, I walked around a bit, glad I was alone but also sad for the same reason. It was incredibly moving to see the number of advocated for peace. I just wish more people were aware of this simple way to send the message that they stand with Hiroshima and want the same thing.

That evening, I walked around the downtown area a bit. Do you know Hiroshima's local cuisine? Okonomiyaki! It's vaguely described as a "Japanese pancake" but that does it no justice: batter, chopped seafood or pork, egg, cabbage, pickled radish, a scrambled egg, yakisoba noodles all cooked on a hot oiled surface and stacked. There's even a section of town stacked just as densely with okonomiyaki restaurants called Okonomiyaki Mura or Village. That's a lot of okonomiyaki.

It was a good day in Hiroshima and I feel I spent the time well. When I left the hostel, I signed the guestbook and left an origami crane along with the others on the bookshelves. The next stop: Fukuoka.