Atomic bombs are bad and my return to the US

Trip Start May 06, 2007
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Trip End Jul 24, 2008

Flag of Japan  ,
Tuesday, April 8, 2008

The day I arrived in Nagasaki was sunny and beautiful. I took advantage of it by spending the afternoon walking all around town. When I woke up to pouring rain the next morning, I was really glad that I had a museum to go to that day. The A-bomb memorial museum was really well done. It described in incredible detail the events leading up to and in the wake of the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki near the end of WWII. The pictures alone were immensely disturbing. They also had clothing, building materials, and all sorts of other objects that were in various stages of melting from the bomb and videos of survivors talking about their experiences. Just about everyone within a couple of kilometers of the hypocenter ended up dead. Not good. I don't think describing it would really have the same moving effect as seeing it, so I'm not going to bother. Just take my word that you don't want to be anywhere near an a-bomb attack for many years afterward. Thankfully the city has very much recovered and is fully functioning now.

After visiting the museum and the Peace Hall next door, I attempted to brave the rain and go into the Peace Park to see the hypocenter, but chickened out when my legs were completely soaked after about 30 seconds of being outside. Instead I headed back into town and grabbed lunch at an Indian restaurant. In Japan, Indian and Italian restaurants were my saviors. Japanese food is very much not vegetarian-friendly. They use fish stock and fish flakes in EVERYTHING! When I showed most restaurants my Japanese note saying that I'm vegetarian and cannot eat meat, fish, chicken or pork, the typical response was a shake of their head and the crossing of their arms across their chest in an X. After being turned down over and over and over again, I tended to get very hungry and give up on Japanese food. Luckily Japanese-style versions of Indian and Italian food are rather prevalent and both of those include a couple of veggie options. While neither are authentic, at least they're food. I did get a chance to try a variety of Japanese foods at a number of different vegetarian restaurants in different cities. In general, I was not impressed. It all tasted like seaweed. Yuck. Definitely my least favorite food of any country I've visited (even more-so than Bolivia's plethora of fried food).

After making my train reservations to Hiroshima (yes, I'm visiting the bomb sites in reverse order), I went back to the hostel, changed into dry clothes, and relaxed for the rest of the day.

On a non-Nagasaki related note, I now have a precise end date for my trip. After more time than I should have spent dealing with United Airlines, I have bought my tickets back to the US. I'll fly from Kuala Lumpur to San Francisco on July 23rd-24th (two overnight flights with a day spent in the Tokyo airport - fun stuff), staying in the Bay Area until July 31st. Then I'll be in Chicago until August 7th, when I'll head out to Boston to hopefully get settled in and find a job before classes start. So if you're in any of these three cities, mark your calendars! As it gets closer I'll start making plans to somehow manage to see everyone during such a short time (sleep obviously isn't the way to get over jet-lag - running around and visiting with people is).
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