Love and Peace: Hiroshima

March 20th (Friday) was a national holiday in Japan, the Vernal Equinox. With a three day holiday in hand, a group of eight ALTs decided to go to Hiroshima for the weekend and celebrate the passing of St. Patrick's Day and a bit of freedom that comes with being a city employee.

We boarded the bus for Hiroshima on Thursday night in what would be a 2.5 hour journey at a relatively inexpensive price. We arrived in the city and were immediately dazzled by the vastness of the place, with clear English written underneath Japanese signs and clean streets and trams. We made our way to K`s Hostel for the weekend and checked in before getting ready to hit Molly Malone's Irish pub for some good eating and drinking.(Derry, Chris, Juliana and I giving a traditional Irish toast: Sláinte!)

On Friday the four of us above decided to visit Miyajima island, 40 minutes outside Hiroshima City. The island hosts the Itsukushima Shrine, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Records say that the shrine was established over 1400 years ago. It sits on the shores of the island and during high tide, it seems to be floating above the sea.

There is a myth that this is the shrine for the Goddess of Purity. No one was allowed to die on the sacred island so they carried dying people off of it to retain its ... purity? (me goofing around the island)

The island hosts other attractions, but the one people remember the most are the domesticated deer that will walk right up to you and steal the wallet right out of your purse. We picniced outdoors which proved to be a fatal error as deer kept coming up to our table. The boys used interesting tactics to try to ward them off.

That evening was Thai food which drove the Irish/Scottish/British men to tears. Europeans and their spices. The night was suppose to be about dancing but the group was divided and I left with a headache. Traveling with a big group is exhausting when people waste time debating. I woke up early with Juliana and we made our way over to the A-bomb Dome and Hiroshima Peace Park. We didn't have time to pick it apart and digest it as much as we wanted (we had a bus to catch) and vowed to return at a warmer date. It was upsetting to see Japanese tourists (and foreigners as well) pose with cheerful expressions in front of WWII memorials. It was as if it weren't a reminder of death and suffering but an outing in the park. I couldn't take pictures with myself in them and instead opted to buy postcards. I couldn't find any modern-day photographs that suited my taste and took one to show the contrast of a city that built itself up again.