Miyajima Island

Itsukushima Island (a.k.a, Miyajima Island) is a 12 square mile island located just a short ferry’s ride off the coast of Hiroshima. In the Shinto religion, the entire island is viewed as a shrine, which means that neither birth nor death may occur on the island, in order to protect its holiness. However, in addition to being home to several Shinto shrines, the most famous of which is Itsukushimajinja and its torii (gate), a few Buddhist temples also are present on the island.

Itsukushimajinja, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is dedicated to the daughters of the Shinto god of oceans and storms. Here, the torii is seen from the back of the jinja (shrine).

As quoted from Wikipedia: “A torii is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the profane to the sacred.” This is a different style of torii found at the back of the jinja.

The world’s largest rice paddle

Until next time…

Hiroshima

After the earthquake, my kouchou-sensei (principal) allowed me to have three days oyasumi (absence), as I had no work for the remaining six now-half days of the school year. At first, the days at home seemed to be a good idea. However, the aftershocks were still quite strong and frequent; and I discovered that staying home alone was far less preferable to sitting at school with nothing to do. So when my friends, R.D. and A.D., invited me to stay with them in Yokohama over the holiday weekend as well as go with them to Hiroshima for a couple of days, I jumped at the chance to use my last two days of nenkyuu (vacation) to get out of town. And, thankfully, my kyoutou-sensei (vice-principal) was more than willing to let me go. While I didn’t get as much rest as I would have liked, I was able to relax and enjoy myself.

My time in Yokohama was so nice and, now that I think about it, centered almost entirely on food, as there is an abundance of American-style and American chain restaurants scattered throughout Yokohama. But I was so stuffed from my four days of American food gluttony (I forgot the lesson that I learned on Guam about American portion sizes.) that I’m now inspired to eat only when hungry and to eat like Okinawans, who eat until they’re 80% full and then stop.

It was also great to discover that my friends and I travel well together. In traveling to/from and around Hiroshima, we moved at the same pace. (It helped that, at 5’9”, I’m the shortest of the three of us. However, it didn’t help in avoiding stares.) We were interested in seeing the same things. We got hungry at the same time. ☺ And we weren’t distraught when we ran out of time to see the Peace Memorial Museum before having to catch our Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Yokohama. So A.D and I are talking about when we might be able to travel back to see the museum. Here are some pictures from the Peace Memorial Park, with captions synthesized and quoted from the literature provided throughout the park:

A-bomb Dome: On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., an American B29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb approximately ¼ mile above and 1½ football stadiums away from the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. The building was almost completely destroyed by the resulting fire, causing everyone in the building to perish immediately. As time passed, the former promotion hall became a hazardous, derelict, and painful reminder of what happened during the war. So many wanted the ruins to be razed. But as the city was rebuilt and other buildings that had been destroyed by the bomb were cleared away, others began to advocate the preservation of the promotion hall. The first such project occurred in 1967, funded by Japanese and foreign donations, with several additional projects following in later years to guarantee that the promotion hall, renamed the A-bomb Dome, would forever look as it did following the bombing. In 1996, the A-bomb Dome was registered with the World Heritage List “as a universal peace monument appealing for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of lasting world peace.”

Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students: Over three million students over the age of 12 were mobilized to work throughout Japan during WWII. More than 10,000 of these students were killed, including 6,000 by the A-bomb.

"This tower was erected by concerned families and friends to console the souls of these victims who sacrificed themselves for their homeland, and who would have had a promising future had there been no war."

For those who died and those who cried: Japanese legend holds that if a person folds one thousand origami cranes, his or her wish will be granted by a crane, a traditionally holy creature. These cranes are hanging at the memorial tower.

Children’s Peace Monument: “This monument stands in memory of all children who died as a result of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima…. Built with contributions from more than 3,200 schools in Japan and donors in nine countries, the Children’s Peace Monument was unveiled on May 5, 1958.

“At the top of the nine-meter (27-feet) monument, a bronze statue of a young girl lifts a golden crane entrusted with dreams for a peaceful future. Figures of a boy and a girl are located on the sides of the monument. 

“The inscription on the stone block under the monument reads: ‘This is our cry. This is our prayer. For building peace in this world.’…”

A one thousand crane origami mural at the peace monument whose kanji read “Peace”.

While in Hiroshima, we also visited Miyajima Island which lies off the coast. I'll include pictures from that portion of the trip in another post.

Until next time…

Lessons learned on Guam

I spent most of the first week of August on Guam with three other English teachers for our use-them-or-lose-them five days of tokkyu (summer vacation). We flew out of Japan on Sunday's red-eye and flew into Japan on Friday's first flight out and packed all of our waking hours in between with sight-seeing, shopping, and stuffing our faces with American food. Although the trip wasn't a cheap one, I am proud to say that I was able to eat for four days at just around $100, thanks to splitting every meal but breakfast with my friend, H.V. (I highly recommend the California Club pizza at California Pizza Kitchen. But I strongly advise you to stay away from the CPK Cobb Salad. It's way too rich.)

Guam is an American territory that sits closer to Japan (three-hour flight) than it does to the United States (eight-hour flight to Hawaii). As a result, 75% of its tourism is comprised of East Asians (historically Japanese but increasingly South Koreans and Chinese); and the Japanese written language can be seen alongside its English equivalent on restaurant menus and mall directories and the spoken language heard just as frequently if not more predominately than English. Its interesting history has resulted in a blend of Chamorro (native), Spanish, Asian, and American family and location names. But rather than write a post that is a history lesson, I'll let you read more about that here and here. Guam has beautiful scenery; and I took too many pictures to post on this blog. So please click here if you'd like to see some of the views I saw while there. Instead, I'll use this post to enumerate lessons I learned/opinions I developed while on Guam:

1. Diet Coke really doesn't taste good and should never become an acquired taste.
2. The world's largest Kmart, while very nice, can't be all that boastful if it carries only two George Clooney movies (one of which is Return of the Killer Tomatoes!) and no York Peppermint Patties.
3. Stomachs shrink after living in Japan; and American restaurant portion sizes are sickeningly huge.
4. Omiyage, the Japanese art of gift giving to honor relationships, is a racket designed by Japanese companies to keep themselves in business.
5. Liev Schreiber almost wins the award for the perfect villain's voice. Sadly for him but happily for us, he's beaten out by Alan Rickman.
6. Touring World War II battle and memorial sites with Japanese people is somewhat awkward, even though the war is most probably the fault of neither of us.
7. Americans are very loud and need to be more discreet about or, even better, not discuss at all their spouse's reproductive problems and their "bastard child(ren) in the Philippines" over Chili's chips and salsa.

Until next time...