Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Hasaam Got a Minute

Day #95
Funds: $3200ish
Location: Weeeelllll ... as of this exact moment, Kyoto, but all my stuff's still in Nara ...
Michael has discovered the joys of spontaneity. Also my thoughts are with my Victorian homies and their crisis.


Been having trouble getting access to a stable internet connection, or finding enough time online to post photos or seriously write a blog/send emails. The reasons why will be crazy clear shortly.

Hiroshima
Here I had an epiphany on the first night. I have a certain plan which will be revealed when the time is right. We met some girls from Brisbane in our dorm who let Shannon use their phone charger (she's pretty much out of juice again though). They seemed to be having fun, last I saw they'd well and truly loaded up on pre-drinks and stumbled out rambling not-especially-sincere-sounding apologies in advance for waking us up when they got back. They weren't back by 6am, which is when me and Shannon left that morning, so I hope they're ok ... So yeah the reason we got up so early is cos the backpacker in Fukuoka who pointed me in the right direction bus-wise also emphatically insisted I go to Miyajima (lit. "Shrine Island"), and to do it early so the tide was low. You know that characteristically asian-looking gate thing, yeah there's a nice one of them just a little ways off shore and when the tide's low you can walk underneath, thus assuring your good luck in Japan! Anyway turned out the lot tide wasn't until noon but it was still nice to see the place fairly void of other tourists, made us feel like we'd found something secret and neat. Anyway we went for a walk and kind of accidentally climbed to the highest point of Misen (maybe "Mi Mountain" in English?). After a brief encounter with some deer who attempted to steal my soyjoy bar and eat our maps (ok we didn't have any maps but that did happen to someone else and it was really funny) we saw a sign that kind of sounded alright telling us that a certain kind of shrine was at the end of this path but it didn't specify how far away. We figured that meant it had to be fairly close and since it was going UP a mountain every couple minutes or so would see us winding around a curve. We were convinced that around each curve would be the end, but we were only right once and naturaly we were wrong a WHOLE bunch of times before that. The shrines were a little scattered across this tiny little field and there was no English., I recognised a couple of the names of Buddhas and was able to tell Shannon a little about them at least from a Chinese/Taiwanese perspective. It was cool being there because firstly it was beautiful and secondly it was such a pain in the arse getting there that we really could believe that not so many foreign people had been here. There were shovels and things like that around, so it was obviously still being maintained though. At this point obviously we had no choice but to get to the top since we were well and truly closer than halfway. So after a total of about 3 or 4 hours, we had hiked all the way up and we treated to a lovely view. Guess what we found at the top of Misen on Miyajima? That's right, a vending machine =D Actually, for most people the absolute highest point on this mountain is a convenience store, which is so freaking Japanese it was almost not funny. I made myself feel better by climbing some rocks equal in height to the shop, and some Japanese guys on the shop seemed to think this was great so I posed for some photos of theirs (well actually they just took photos while I kind of made manly gestures at them). This whole experience, as well as getting back, left us basically totally knackered and we ate in, Shannon is quite good with random vegetables noodles and sauce, as it turns out.

Aoi had invited us to catch up Saturday morning, so the next day was to be our last in Hiroshima. I tried and failed to arrange an overnight bus, but they were all full so in order to make it on time we agreed to splurge a little on a shinkansen (bullet train) trip, which was neat in its own way because now I can say I've done it, but really it was basically the same as the mag-lev in Shanghai, only it travelled a lot further distance and was, as seems to be the trend in Japan, a bit more comfortable.

Before that we had to do the thing that everyone has to do in Hiroshima, and that was visit the Peace Park and the epicentre thing. Ms Boltong read the story of Sadako and the 1000 cranes to my class in Grade 3, which was sort of the point at which I decided I wanted to go to Japan at all. Sadako was a girl who had leukaemia because of radiation poisoning after the a-bomb and tried to fold 1000 cranes so she could wish to get better. She didn't make it but her friends finished the 1000 for her and it's been tradition since then to pretty much cake the place with origami cranes. Sadly, this was the point in my journey at which I also realised how much of a better commision Shannon gets than me for withdrawing money and I couldn't stop calculating how much I saved by transferring mine into her account and just getting it from her in cash. Thanks to that it looks like I'll have exactly enough to survive until the time I need to, it's actually like $500-700 I save (crazy, right? don't trust Travellex, they're scheming bastards), and before I was assured of that I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. Because I can get a little fixated on my schemes while I'm sorting them out, I know I bothered Shannon a little bit given the time and place, and I am a little ashamed of myself. When I saw the statue of Sadako I did go quiet and got a tiny bit teary though. They also have the ruins of a building that was directly under the bomb preserved as a reminder, and the list of names of everyone effected beneath a flame that they don't stop burning. That was nice too.

Oh and just while I'm in the mood, I just want to say that I've been following the Victorian fire situation as closely as I can from where I am, it hit fairly close to home at a certain point (the part in Cranbourne touched was much closer to Shannon's place than mine though) and I really am sad for all those affected by it. The number of charity organisations and fundraisers and official international well-wishers springing up is actually freaking me out more than inspiring me, I think because that really hammers in the severity of the situation to me. You're all in whatever my version of prayers is.


This is in no small way the sum of everything I've done since my last entry. I now have a list of stuff for reference so I can just catch up a little bit everytime I blog. Next stop, a brief stopover in Kyoto before being spoiled absolutely rotten in Nara!

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