Journals Day 11 (Prepare yourself before you read this please.)

We woke up early this morning as we had to leave our homestays. I returned to the shower area and got ready for the day. We dined one last time with the family. They presented us with gifts as we ate and wished us the best of luck. I bought beef jerky for the trip in case I couldn't eat and now that I knew that I could, I had little use for them unless I was planning to go with out for a while. I gave the remaining 5 packages of jerky along with my other gifts and scrapbook to the family. I felt bad for not giving them more but the happiness of their faces made me realize I gave them more than enough. I said goodbye to the kids with a heavy heart and watched all three of them walk off toward school. We then loaded up one last time in the car and prepared to leave.

My homestay Ito-san brought us back to the government building where he picked Zac and I up 3 days earlier. He thanked us for everything and left for he had to go to work. I watch as others arrived and said goodbye to their host families. Some were crying while others just shook hands but in their minds was the same thought: 'Thanks for being so nice and I will truly miss you." The bus arrived and with all our bags now in the truck, we left them all behind in a cloud of diesel exhaust on a trail paved by happy memories and shed tears of sorrow. The ground behind us was now made holy in our hearts forever.

We took a short trip to the train station where we were to catch a bullet train to Hiroshima. We got into the station and walked up to the platform. We were conditioned in the bus that when the train doors are opened, we must let everyone off and rush in or else we would leave someone behind and if that happened, they were out of luck. The train doors opened up and we rushed the train just trying to get everyone on. We did so well, we were all seated before the train took off and only left behind one person and no one like him any way (kidding). The train ride lasted a while but at 380 km/hr, the trip was faster than the bus no doubt. The group transferred once and after about an hour or so, we arrived in Hiroshima.

As we arrived, a tour guide met us in the station and showed us to the bathrooms, ATM, and finally the bus where we all piled in to get ready for the next event which promised to be the most heart wrenching experience of our lives. She explained how we were going to the Hiroshima Peace Park where we would see among other things, the atom bomb dome, the children's memorial, the students memorial, and the museum. We left the bus and headed toward the dome. As we walked, we were told the facts and figures that went along with the sad fate that befell Hiroshima that August morning. About 150,000 people died because of the one bomb. We were told of the complete and total devastation it caused... Of the pain people felt... Of the pain people still felt today...

We visited the student memorial and told that many who died here were students sent from all over Japan to work down here so all the men could go out and fight. The students did all the jobs needed to keep the city running like drive the cable cars and watch over the manufacturing of goods so both the people and soldiers had things to continue using to live and survive. We then moved to the children's memorial and told of the story of Sadako and how she 10 years after the atom bomb hit, fell ill with leukemia and thought that if she folded 1000 paper cranes, the gods would grant her a wish of being better. Sadly she died and even after folding 1000 cranes, she did not have her wish granted. We then placed all of our cranes down at the memorial and took time to pray before we moved on the the next and possibly hardest trial yet: the museum.

As we walked to the museum, we remembered what our history teachers told us and all the pictures in our history books. None of which prepared me for what I was about to see. We were taken into a theater room where they showed us a movie about the bomb. In the movie, we saw clips that we never saw before. Clips of Hiroshima completely leveled to the ground, scenes of bodies rotting in the street and faces burned beyond recognition. Scenes of little kids completely emaciated burned, and bleeding. Children that had everything to look forward to that morning and nothing but death by night fall. Thousands gone, hundreds in a flash turned to ashes. The movie ended and we were then told to go through the museum for the only way to the exit, is to re-live the horrors that many went through. We walked along paths that showed how Japan was fighting against America and winning, then turned into losing then turned into survival. We then entered ground zero. Words cannot describe emotions like these. It is hard to type the images are so powerful. Images of people burned raw diving into rivers to get a drink and cool off drowning as others pile on top of them... Images of shadows burned onto the ground and buildings as people who stood there were vaporized... Images of people crying out for water and help only to be consumed by fire and their own pain. There were articles of clothing blown apart by the blast as well as pictures drawn from peoples memories of the pain on that day on display. The entire scene seemed to be a living thing as it invaded every part of me. Finally, I reached the end and wrote my name in the guest book and headed out. I exited the museum and took time to regain my composure as did everyone else before we moved on. With a heart full of remorse, I left the park with a different outlook. War, not atom or nuclear bombs, is horrible and it can only lead to worse things. Peace is what we need.

From there, we were taken to a nearby shopping district and given about an hour to make our rounds. I found an electronics store and bought myself a new pair of head phones and some batteries for a friend who gave me some money if I ran into any. I thought how this entire city seemed to be what I thought Tokyo would be like. It was large and very noisy thanks to a overhead loudspeaker blaring out music and adds for stores. The entire area felt so Urban but a true Japanese take on the style, not the other way around like in Tokyo.

Then we loaded 'er up one last time and rode off to the hotel where we ate a great meal with all the trimmings and settled down for our one night stay (I don't mean High School Lingo) at the Prince Hotel: Hiroshima.