On The Move: Tales of Inter-Island Travel

Ohiyo gozaimas (good morning) from Saga City! Well, it's the afternoon for you, but it's very early in the morning for me. Today we left Tokyo and separated into our Host City groups. Now, instead of all staying in one area with the whole group, I am in a small suburb (if you can even call it that) with a group of 14 other people. We left Tokyo around 9am this morning and rode the bus to the airport. There, we boarded a plane to Fukokua, the largest city on the Japanese island of Kyushu (the 4th largest island in the archipelago). In the airport this morning we ran into some Japanese celebrities...SUMO WRESTLERS! They were very kind and even let us take their pictures! For lunch, I bought another bento box, and this time I took a picture. In the store where they sell the boxes, they have examples open to show you what's inside (and if I could read Japanese I'm sure it lists the ingredients, too), but sometimes it's hard to tell what you are looking at and other times it turns out that it's not what you thought it was. Either way, it is usually pretty tasty and it ALWAYS looks beautiful.

On the way from the airport in Fukokua to our hotel in Saga City, we stopped at a famous shrine that dates back to the early 900s and is dedicated to the diety of learning. In the winter, many students come to pray at this shrine before taking their exams. On average, 7 million people visit this shrine every year. Like all Shinto shrines, this one has a place to wash your hands outside and torii gates to mark the entrance. Today, inside the shrine was a little bit different from other days. Since today is a Sunday and it is considered to be a "lucky day" on the ancient Japanese calendar, many parents brought their children to the shrine to celebrate their 3rd, 5th, or 7th birthday. To mark the occasion, the children are dressed in kimono and they participate in a ceremony at the temple with their parents. The ceremonies didn't last very long and there were a couple of them during the hour we spent at the shrine.

We arrived at our hotel in Saga City around 4:45 pm, but a group of seven of us were on our way to the train station fifteen minutes later. Since we didn't have anything scheduled for the rest of the night, we decided to use our free time to visit Nagasaki. Nagasaki is the second city to be attacked with nuclear weapons by the United States during WWII. A plutonium bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days after the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. While Hiroshima tends to get more attention, the residents of Nagasaki suffered many of the same consequences after being exposed to high levels of radiation. It was dark by the time we got there (it seems to get very dark here by 5:30 pm) and the museums were already closed, but the parks and memorials dedicated to the victims of the bombing were extremely powerful and moving...maybe even more so because it was dark and empty, except for our group. Instead of being sad memorials or angry memorials, many of them are hopeful memorials that stand as symbols for dreams of peace and cooperation, instead of war between nations in the future. Behind me in the picture on the right are rainbow colored strands. At first they look like ribbons or feathers, but when you get closer you notice that it is thousands of tiny origami cranes. It is a Japanese belief that if you fold 1000 cranes, your dreams will come true. After hearing the survivors of Hiroshima speak on Friday, it was very moving to see the wishes for peace that were sent the memorials in Nagasaki from people all over the world.

A couple of hours after arriving in Nagasaki, we boarded the last train back to Saga City. Tomorrow we have a VERY busy day in Takeo, our Host City for the next week, and we are meeting with some very important people. I can't wait to tell you all about it tomorrow!