around town: akihabara

Akihabara is the part of town where one ventures when one is in the market for new electronic eqipment and blown eardrums.

Akihabara is known for its electronic shops, which are literally every other address in the area.  The streets are even paved in worship of all things electronic.  The most notable thing about there area is the young salespeople who scream (often with the help of bullhorns) the daily deals.  Nothing is sacred. Not even ipods.

From blenders....

to plugs (?)....

to welcoming robots....?

what he's saying: "Konnichiwa // Akihabara eh yokoso"  or "Good day // and welcome to Akihabara!'

Also, lightbulbs....

and phonographs....

and fans...  seem to be important enough to garnish a spot on the Akhabara "walk of fame electric appliances."


Another thing that seems to be important enough to mention: AKB48.  A "troupe" of young girls whose only talent seems to be dressing up in "lolita" outfits and "performing" (music - get your minds out of the gutter!) daily in Akihabara (they do seem to have albums that are released nationally from time to time).   They are located on the top floor of the Don Quijote store, which seems to detract from their legitimacy.

Akihabara, we love your low prices, we dislike your cheapness!

Mata ne,
Melissa

memory lane, kumamoto

After our day in Hiroshima, we headed south to where the Shinkansen tracks literally end in Hakata city, and hopped aboard a local train to take us all the way to the south end of Kyushu (Honshu is the main island, where Tokyo is, Kyushu is the most southern "big" island on a map).

Jeff's mother Roz had spent a year in this area as a Rotary Exchange Student in the city of Kumamoto in 1970-1971, and this was her first time back there since leaving almost 40 years ago - needless to say, a lot had changed!  We were lucky to accompany her on this trip down memory lane, and we got to see some of the places she enjoyed most during her time there.

Here are Roz and Dick in front of Roz's high school.  When she attended, it was an all-girls Lutheran school - Kyushu Luther Gakuin (Academy) - but now it is secular and has male students.  But the girls' uniforms are exactly the same!

Here's Roz posing with some of the cheer squad that was practicing at the school that day (on the weekend - the campus was quite full!).  They were excited, if not a bit confused, to learn that she had attended the school. 

In the driveway to the school, which I am pretty sure she mentioned had been unpaved when she was here last, there were handmade koi nobori - literally: climbing (upstream) koi - which are hung in honor of boy's day (children's day as it is now known) during the first week of May.

We also visited the tiny hospital which was run by her favorite host family.  It seems that it is still in operation as a clinic and run by one of the sons of the doctor who had been her host father.  As it was a weekend, everything was shut down, but we were able to get a picture of the very cool post "box" out front.

Now how am I going to get one of these to Upstate New York....?

One of the only things that Roz says is largely unchanged from her time in Kumamoto 40 years ago is the Kumamoto Castle.

This thing, as you can see, is huge.  And this is only part of the whole castle complex that remains. 

This was part of a samurai room that has been meticulously restored using traditional tools and methods.  These are gilded sliding doors with traditional samurai life images. 

And look at this ceiling!

One last very cool thing about the castle:  Since it was designed for protection as well as prestige, it is fortified in several interesting ways to prevent enemies from being able to get in easily.  As you can see from the picture below, the walls are slanted in an arc upward.  It may be hard to tell, but at the top, the walls are actually designed to be angled past vertical, making them near impossible to scale.  It does appear that they would be quite fun to try, though there were signs everywhere requesting that my husband kindly refrain from doing so. 

Thanks, Roz for bringing us along on your adventure into the past!

Mata ne,
Melissa

hiroshima peace memorial

Back to recounting Jeff's parents' visit.... ummm.... two months ago.

We had the opportunity to spend a day in Hiroshima on our way further south and this was one place we wanted to be sure to see.  It looks just like any other Japanese city, actually, and appears quite modern and cosmopolitan.  There is a great community center/hotel (Aster Plaza International Youth Hostel, if you're interested) that we stayed in which has "peace study" rates for foreigners, encouraging outsiders to come and learn about the city's past. 

We spent much of the day visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum dedicated to the story of the atomic bombing, and realized that almost all of our time in Hiroshima was spent in the part of the city that was completely leveled by the bomb.  The museum itself was a comprehensive exploration (in several languages) of the events leading up to, immediately following, and in the time since the atomic bomb was dropped, and serves as a powerful reminder of devastation caused by a weapon which in reality, detonated only a tiny amount of it's potential nuclear capacity. At just 50 yen (about 50 cents) it should not be skipped. 

The craziest thing I learned in the museum: Many middle and high school children had been outside working on various tasks as part of the war mobilization effort in the city, and that demographic was probably the most affected by the initial explosion (many were killed immediately, and bodies were never recovered by their families) and by the short and long term after effects of exposure to the radiation and radiation poisoning (victims of the bombing died months and even years later from illnesses directly related to radiation exposure).


There is a small shrine dedicated to the victims of the bombing near the museum and very close to the "ground zero" of the explosion. 

I am not sure why it is shaped like a covered wagon. 

The coffin looking stone box in the center of the memorial contains a register of all the victims of the bomb.  New names are added each year on the anniversary of the explosion. 

Behind the memorial shrine and to the left in the picture you can see the so-called A-Bomb Dome.  It is the remnants of what used to be the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, which was just a few hundred meters from ground zero of the explosion.  I am not sure why the lights look green. 

Because it was a modern building, designed to withstand earthquakes, it was able to remain for the most part standing, while almost every other building in a one mile radius was leveled. 

Here is a picture of the site in the daytime, to give you another sense of the extent of the damage. 

It is my understanding that the building has been preserved in the state that it was just after the explosion (so it will not further deteriorate due to weather or other factors) to illustrate what the city looked like after the war. 

And as you can see, the memorial and A-Bomb Dome are situated in such a way that those coming to pay their respects can look right through the memorial, over an eternal flame (that will burn until all atomic bombs in the world have been destroyed) and and to the A-Bomb Dome.

Of course, we weren't able to take pictures in the museum, but that's ok, because everyone should really try and see it for themselves.  Fair warning: it is a big downer, obviously, and you should be sure to give yourself ample time to see everything in the museum without feeling like you had to rush through it, and then time to walk around the grounds and to the A-Bomb Dome to decompress.
(For interesting pictures of the extent of the destruction, please check out this article from the Boston Globe online.  Some of the images are a bit graphic, but nothing too gross/scary.)

As it turns out, when we were in Hiroshima there was a big flower festival going on, and there were a bunch of high school students out asking people to make origami cranes, a symbol of peace. 

Let's just say my perfectionist and competitive streaks came together to create some of the best, and most quickly constructed, paper cranes ever made in Hiroshima by a nice Jewish girl from America, if I do say so myself. 

This was utterly ridiculous.  Please note (though you can't see it) that in addition to the middle-aged "conductor," the riders of this train were exclusively adults. 

 We were able to enjoy a (generous) taste of some local sake, ladled right out of this here barrel.  The nice gentleman behind the barrel dished it out, and is demonstrating a popular Japanese way of dealing with the heat and humidity.  Rather than removing some of the layers one is wearing, or putting on shorts (heaven forbid!) or light, loose fitting clothing, we've observed many Japanese people just taking a small towel, sometimes damp, sometimes not, and tucking it into their shirt collar around their necks.  A good sweat catcher I presume, but I think it would just make me even hotter!

Thanks Roz and Dick for a great time in Hiroshima!  Next it's off to Kumamoto, where Roz hasn't been for forty years!

Mata ne,
Melissa