Hiroshima

Hiroshima, Himeji and Smoking in Public My final day in Japan started off at the Peace Park and museum at the site where the Atom Bomb was dropped in 1945. My initial reaction, which grew as the day passed, was that there indeed was such a dreadful and enormous human tragedy that brought World War II to an end. However, in my opinion the portrayal of Japan as a victim is not historically correct. But I guess that history will always be interpreted, and will depend on the point of view of the interpreter. History is not math and is not, therefore, objective. On a personal level I don't accept Japan's self-victimization as it interprets the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, to actually stand alongside the bombed out dome, and walk across the T-bridge that was the target of the Enola Gay's "Little Boy" made me feel very, very somber.



The gardens all around are beautiful, and Hiroshima is a very pretty city, the entire peace park is beautifully designed and its various memorials are impressive too. The Peace Museum does its work very well; the numerous museological elements, the use of a variety of media and real artifacts, as well as personal testimonies and of course the subject matter itself, combine together to make this a must-see museum. From the museum I returned to the station for my final ride on the Shinkansen. I was planning to go directly to Osaka, but decided to get off the train one stop before, in Himeji. Himeji is a small town (population about 400,000) near Osaka, and is famous for the Himeji Castle, once occupied by the local Shogun. The initial impression is something out of an eastern fairy tale, fan walls, gabled roofs and all that. Perched high on a rock in a beautiful surrounding garden, it's quite overwhelming. I had a picnic lunch in the gardens, and then proceeded to climb the hill to the castle. There is a maze of alleyways that lead up the hill to confuse potential enemies - and many tourists too! Sometimes you have to go down in order to get to the next, higher, level. I pity the enemy who tried to take this castle! I digress to tell you about smoking etiquette in Japan. Of course, you cannot smoke indoors almost anywhere in Japan. And in those places where you can, the smoking corner has a powerful air purifier that draws in the smoke and filters the air immediately, so you can't even smell smoke in the immediate environment of the smoker's corner. What do smokers do outdoors? Well, those people who have to drag frequently carry their own personal, portable, sealable ashtrays. They puff and ash their smokes in the ashtray, extinguish their butts, and then seal them in their personal ashtrays which they put in their pockets and off they go. In outdoor areas like parks and gardens, there are smoking corners and public-use ashtrays. Flicking your stub or stomping it out? Not to be seen here at all. From Himeji I bussed to Osaka, arriving there toward evening. I made my way to Kansai airport which is about a 1½ hour drive from the city. Actually, once I left the city it was about a 45-minute drive to Kansai airport. Kansai airport is built out at sea on a land-fill (actually garbage-fill) island. What amazed me is that from shortly after leaving downtown, you drive almost all the way on elevated roadways, sometimes really high, like past tenth-floor office block windows, and over or through seven-level over- and under-passes, and then over the sea for 20 minutes! And this in a country that has known serious earthquakes! Astounding! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Menahem_Fogel