Day 56: Reflecting

Today I went to Onomichi, a quaint port town, off the main tourist map. The trip there on the train was really pleasant and I have finally figured out how to check the timetables ahead of time, so I got there without a hitch. Onomichi is very well known though for its Temple Walk through the hillside neighborhoods, which takes you to 25 `old temples` in Onomichi (although there are many more), the Path of Literature, which takes you by several old dwellings of famous authors, and the Shimanami Kaido a 60km cycling path/highway that takes you from Onomichi across many small islands in the Seto Inland Sea to Shikoku Prefecture.

When I arrived just before noon I was freezing, but I broke into a sweat almost immediately when the sun came up and I began the steep uphill walk toward the temples. Only one temple area was really bussling and I mostly enjoyed the day reflecting on my trip. This trip feels so much different from my first trip and I will say knowing I have to go home and `figure out what`s next` is spoiling the bliss of travelling just a little. There were some great views and I sat down often to look out over the rooftops from up high. At one point a saw a beautiful little kitty sitting on a red bench maked `Lovers Sanctuary`. I sat down and to my surprise she walked right on to my lap, curled up and continued cleaning herself as before! She did not demand much attention but did purr loudly. This of course attracted the attention of many Japanese couples, who came over to talk to me and the cat! I found out later there are quite a few little `famous` cats around the Temple Walk and I think I saw my kitty featured on a postcard!

On this trip, I have also been trying to learn and use more Japanese. It takes me awhile after I learn something though to actually use it and it really requires me to be very forward since I am not assumed to speak Japanese and really I don`t. But the words are easier to learn now after hearing the language now for so many weeks and it is cool at least to learn a word and then here in speech around me. I wanted to be more polite so I have learned sumimasen (excuse me) and gomenasai (sorry). I am also trying to use a few other words and phrases that I am always needing to ask like toyre (toilet) and one, please (ichi, kudasai). I am waiting for a conversation to tell someone my name and age, I have been practicing this in my head: Watashi no nama ewa Megan des and Watashi wa nujushi sai des.... i think those are right. I`ve also learned to count to ten: ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shi-chi, ha-chi, ku, ju! I had sort of cast aside my phrase book but it is kind of fun to read and understand the structure of the language a little better, like I said before, now that it seems a little more familiar.

So while Japan has lost a little bit of its novelty now that I have been here nearly two months, there are so many things I just cannot get tired of and already know I will miss. Walking back from the Temples I cut through the shopping arcade. I really do not know when I will get tired of ducking into 100Y shops, buying things with strange cats on it, and trying yummy sweets! Right when I turned onto the shopping street was a convience store and I went in craving a sweet. Now, thanks to my cousin Amy, I have discovered my new favorite meal/snack (which I found out is actually considered Chinese food)--they are basically big puffy dumplings made of rice and filled with some kind of yummy meat filling. The best part is they come out steaming hot, which is perfect in the cold weather! Today, one shaped like a bunny (for this is the year of the rabbit---thats our year 1987 babies!) with little pink ears (I took a picture of me with it so I`ll get it up here soon) and then! I noticed a chocolate one, oh man oh man! Please never underestimate the power for something delightfully yummy to lead to pure happiness! It took me back to Totoro`s Neighborhood in Kyoto and the yummy green tea cream puffs! This yummy fluffy gooey chocolate dumpling could certainly compete AND was only 100 yen! it was yummy in that way that left me wanting another one immediately. If it hadn`t been the only one I certainly would have walked back. You can already count on me popping into every convience store I pass from now on looking for another one!

I also think I will miss the guesthouses I have stayed in and the architecture and design of Japanese houses. I really love the sliding doors and tatami floors and the japanese shower rooms and even the squat toilets--by far my preference for a public bathroom. I don`t think I have given enough credit on this blog to Japanese shower rooms. The best part is they are a ROOM! Only one guest house had a shower that won the award for smallest shower ever (it stole the title from my apartment in seguin`s shower). This one made me laugh because it had little drawings to show different ways to take a shower (sitting, standing on your hands--which was supposed to be the joke, but it showed a woman standing in there and I was like okay my head touches the slanted cieling when I am sitting!) But on the whole they are spacious! I like that they all usually provide something to sit on while showering and a removable handle and sometimes even a steaming hot bath to dip into after you are clean--its like a personal bath house! I will also miss heated toilet seats---ooooo---and heated rugs! Come on United States, get with the program! Heated rugs!

I am also going to miss the other little chance encounters with people as I go throughout my day. I wish I reached out more and offered up more Japanese. I should learn how to say, `Can I take your picture?` since I try to offer this sometimeswhen I see couples struggling to take their picture together--it seems only fair when I often need to ask someone to take mine.Or yesterday on the tram, a woman offered me her english and I learned she had been married to a US airman and lived in CA for 50 years, her husband had died 10 years ago and she had returned to Japan for a few years, because there was more for her to do here. It is the littlest things like a man saying thank you (in english) to me for holding the door open or a family who were pushing each other up the hill, mom in front, then dad, then daughter, i giggled and waved and the daughter gave me the biggest smile and the MOST enthusiastic wave!

Like I said in my blog post yesterday, I will miss the spiritual prescence and the mix of modern and anchient. I thought a lot today about the bombings and the wartime here in Japan since I am reading Barefoot Gen, a comic book about Hiroshima by an A-bomb survivor (comparable to Maus for anyone who has read this survivor`s account of the Holocaust). I learned in the museum that Kyoto was on one of the final lists of where the A-bomb would be dropped. It is terrible to think that you can be glad a bomb was dropped somewhere and not somewhere else but anyone who knows Kyoto would have the same thought--thank goodness it was not dropped there! But to think of all we are not getting to see today because of the war! Reading the introductions to the english translation of Barefoot Gen, it struck me again how enlightened the people of Hiroshima are in their perspective of the war at that time. They do not seem to place hardly any blame or fault on the allied forces but much more on the powerful eltie in their own country. They seem to try very hard to go beyond blame and fault and enemy and countryman and talk simply about peace: FOR EVERYONE.

But at the same time, I was sickened to read the exchanges between the president and others who were making the decision to drop the bomb. The US government treated it like a science experiment. After spending billions of dollars they wanted to prove that the bomb was useful and they were essentially choosing which city would be the best place to test it out. Many survivors can recount that they first saw little paracutes coming down before the explosion, which were scientific devices to gather information. It was at the least good to read that many of the scientists themselves protests the bombs use and particularly the use of it without warning. But it is truly disgusting to see how the decision was made to drop the bomb and how we intentionally made no real effort to gain surrender, since they really wanted to show the world how powerful the bomb. This is one reason they ordered a stop to bombing the cities that might be chosen... so that the destruction could be acounted to the bomb.