Kobe - Day 1

The Crowne Plaza in Kobe easily wins the title of best hotel in this whole holiday. For a fair price of $140, I have a great view overlooking all of Kobe, a PC in my room with free internet access, and otherwise exceptional facilities. But, I didn't come here to look at hotels so I'm going to write this post and go for a walk around this beautiful looking city.

Osaka finished up very nicely on Sunday and I have received probably the best souvenier that I could get on this holiday. Our friends at the local darts bar had a relatively quiet night at work so we spent a fair bit of time talking with them, and played a few games together. Towards the end of the evening, they suggeted that they record a game with all five of us in the bar (three staff, James, and I) using this little DVD recording system. It was pretty impressive. The screen is split into three sections. The whole right half of the screen offers of a view of the player facing the board and the left half is split again offering a view of the score board (its all electronic) in one half and a view of the darts board in the other half. I came last, but I really don't mind (I still have the higher fucking score than you James, so shutup! :P). At the end, I walked away with a (free) DVD to record the great experience as well as the inappropriate gestures I was making at James while his back was turned.

I transferred to Hiroshima on Monday and after 5 days of seemingly endless drinking I decided it was time to just relax a little. I checked in to my hotel at 3pm, ordered a movie, and read a book. I know it sounds boring but the time out was rather necessary.

On Tuesday I caught up with another of my old Japanese teachers from Melbourne, Miki. She had only returned to Japan a few weeks earlier but I had missed her farewell party in Melbourne due to a bout of the flu. After meeting up at about 9am we headed out towards the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, and the A-Bomb Dome. What was a bright and lively conversation of broken Japanese and English instantly turned into a quiet, respectful silence as we rounded the corner and the dome came into view. That silence continued almost uninterrupted until we left the museum nearby 3 hours later.

I had seen countless photos of the A-Bomb Dome. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it was one of the very few buildings left standing when the first nuclear weapon was used in war, at 8:15am August 6 1945 (JST). The bomb detonated almost directly above what was an industrial convention hall at the time and it is theorised that this is why the shockwave wasn't able to knock it down, because there was more downward pressure than sideways pressure. Other concrete buildings survived, but most were at least 500m (horizontally) from the hypocentre. The photos I had seen never seemed to capture the building quite the way you can see it up close. It has been preserved exactly as it was after the explosion, and presumably no bodies would even have need to be removed since at that point, there would have been no bodies or anything other than bricks, warped steel, and concrete.

The dome is at the edge of a large memorial area which also incorporates a memorial to the victims, a childrens memorial, a museum, and several other attractions. I visited the museum which was simply incredible. The displays progress through talk of how Hiroshima came to be involved in the war and subsequently a target, and then covered the detonation of the bomb, its immediate effects, international proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the long term effects of radiation. The atomic attacks on Japan are something I've learnt about in the past but there was still plenty of new information.

One thing I hadn't known was that at the time of the bombing thousands of school children had been mobilised to work in the city demolishing wooden houses to create fire breaks for the air raids that were soon to come. The irony of this is that when the bomb exploded, everything within 2km (including these children) was either incinerated or instantly caught fire when temperatures reached over 2000 degrees celcius instantly. The fire breaks would do nothing. An extensive area of the museum displays clothing and other items that these children had when the bomb exploded. There is a further display that depicts those children who were unfortunately far enough to away to have not been incinerated instantly but close enough to have been exposed to such temperatures that their skin had literally melted off their bodies and hung loose as they walked the streets in search of help. Many of them died within 48 hours after their burns and extreme radition exposure took its toll. Those who managed to live beyond 6 months were likely to spend the rest of their lives not only emotionally ruined but also physically disabled, unable to concieve healthy children, and will most likely live short and painful lives.

The bombing may have ended the war and saved more lives than it took, but I think it is too often considered only in terms of dead, injured, or living. The attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for example, did not claim as many lives as the firebombing of Tokyo. However, fires were extinguished, the injured may be healed, the war ended, and Tokyo was rebuilt. There are still over a hundred thousand people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who continue to experience unimaginable pain to this very day. That pain will continue with the deformaties passed to their children for generations. But the war ended over 60 years ago.

I had always been aware that nuclear weapons were the most powerful destructive force we had ever created. I am now, however, deeply aware that they are also the most inhumane device that we as a species have ever created.