Nagasaki 22nd-23rd September

Welcome to the past - I'm sorry I took so long to get here!

So Flying in Japan is so simple that it's actually ridiculous. We didn't even know we'd checked in, it was so simple. Turned up at the desk, with our ticket receipt and we were pretty much sorted. You actually only have to be in the airport 15 mins before departure, and I can see why, it's so bloody smooth.

Even the security checks were so uncomplicated. I had a bottle of water and a bottle of rum, which as you know, would so have been taken off me in Europe it's unreal! Not a chance - though, wo be fair, I did lie and tell them the rum wasn't opened. *shrug* They didn't check, so it ain't my fault.

What they did with them was cool though, they just stuck the waterbottle, and then the rum on a little scanner that went - beep - nah, that's just water, not a bomb, you can take it on the plane. Just like that.

The most complicated part was getting all the wires out of my bag. I wanted to sort out photos and watch some film while I was on the plane, so I had the laptop, phone, hard-drive and camera and all the attendant-wires in my carry on, all of which had to be taken out at security. Not pleasant.

After that though, it was straight on through, and on to the airplane (should I be saying aeroplane? Do people do that? Does anyone reading this give a shit?)

Then we flew and then we landed, and then we got a bus and then we were in Nagasaki, and then we got a taxi and we were in the very nice Akari Hostel, Nagasaki, which I recommend if you ever want to stay there. This time, it was Neena's turn to be wrecked, so we'd a fairly early night that night. Food, which was decent, followed by bed, especially since the wireless was broken in the hostel that night.

Then the next morning we went out to the Atomic Bomb museums and memorials, because being that I'm a bleak bastard, this was something I really did want to see while in Japan.

It is, of course, depressing and I will not be making insensitive jokes at this particular juncture. I won't even talk to much about what I felt, but rather try and take you through some of the finer points of what we saw. Also, there aren't a whole load of pictures of somethings, and none of others, because you just can't take pictures in some of these places.

In the Atomic Bomb Museum one of the more striking things, for myself, was the clock to the right there. It was found in the wreckage of a house, damaged just as it is there. If you can't make it out, the hands are stopped at exactly 11.02, the exact time of the atomic blast on 9th August, 1945. Supposedly, the act which ended the Second World War in the Pacific Theatre, but we'll get to that later. There's just something about seeming that clock that made me think, yeah, that's what happened. 70,000 lives snuffed out in that single moment, immortalised in the face of a smashed clock, no bodies for their loved ones, no graves but the rubble of a city, their shadows blasted into the rock, trapped there like shades, eulogised by the twisted hands of broken time.

I couldn't really begin to explain all the different things we saw and read in this museum, it would take too long and wouldn't convey half the meaning the simply radiates from the objects themselves, the sheer potential for human destruction. Having been in Dachau, the feeling was not unfamiliar, though the wantonness of Dachau remains unassailably evil. This is one act that took 70,000 lives in an instant of fire, while the Nazi concentration camps were something else, places that thrived on malice, day in and day out. The acts are not really comparable, if only because as cynical as I am, I don't believe that the horror of the atomic bomb could have been perpatrated on a long term basis. Accounts from American GIs on the ground in the wake of the Japanese surrender express a deep and profound discomfort with the actions of their military, with their own association with that act, once they were forced to see the actual consequences of the atomic attack. However, that's slightly off topic.

What I mean to say is that just as it is difficult to describe Dachau to someone who has never walked through it, it is difficult to express the feelings that come from seeing the melted bottles, ash shadows in walls, or the twisted steel girders lifted from the wreckage, the torn, bloodied clothes of the dead, or the moulds of burns and keloid scars. I can tell you that these things were there to be seen, alongside videos of survivor-testimonies, but there is little my telling can do to accurately convey the real sensations provided by such sights.

Instead, I will talk about so of the more factual things I learned about in this museum, the first of which, is that the American president at the time, Mr Truman, was probably a complete fucking idiot, comparable with, or worse than George Bush. Although the Manhattan Project was created under the auspices of Roosavelt, I like to think that it is unlikely that he would have used the weapon, certainly not in the circumstances surrounding the bombing as it did happen. Truman inherited the weapon, and it seemed, none of the responsibility. For him, it was a two billion dollar deficit that needed to be showcased, while for others it was undoubtedly a weapon of last resort.

Many of his military advisors strongly criticised the decision to use the weapon on the basis that it would lead to a nuclear arms race with Russia in the near future, which you might be aware, is exactly what happened.

Other suggestions included attacking an unpopulated area and giving advanced notice, in order to shock the Japanese population into surrender without recourse to fatalities - this was, of course, rejected out of hand. Even after the first bombing, Japanese overtures of surrender were not convincing enough, so a second bomb was, to repeat the phrase, "showcased" on a civilian population.

In fact, much evidence exists that the Japanese would have surrendered in and around that time without the use of nuclear weapons. Many intelligence reports from the US military suggest that they knew this. The declaration of war by Russia was probably more affective than either of the bombings.

However, the nuclear bombings did lead to the unconditional surrender of Japan, which was presumably a good thing for America, if no one else. It strikes me, however, that hundreds of thousands of lives and a Cold War later, Truman might have been better served without his bombs.

Following our walk around the museum we went to the Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, which, in reality, is a mausoleum for the bodiless victims of the attack, since most of those caught in the open were vaporised, while many more were lost beneath the rubble of the destroyed city. Some 65,000 names are kept in a glass vault at the end of this place, but let me describe the rest of it first. From outside it looks like a fountain, as a token or gesture to the survivors of the blast, who cried out for water as they suffered from an unbearable thirst in the wake of the explosion. You can see to the right what I mean. It is circular, and the intention is that a visitor walks the circle as many times as necessary to find inner calmness before walking down the steps into the memorial proper. Inside, everything is made of green glass, beautifully lit up. Inside we signed a guestbook, which each visitor must do. We then walked the route to the main memorial, which points directly at the hypocentre (where the bomb went off) of the bomb blast, less than a kilometre away, if memory serves.

It is a quiet place, for prayer and grief, so I have little to say about it - "such things are not brayed of in tongues" seems an apt phrase, although one might question the subject matter of the poem. Certainly I mean no disrespect in using it. All I can say to you, dear reader, is the stacked boxes of 65,000 names in this glass hall, and the prayers that must surely echo in its walls are not for us, but something that can belong only to those who lost so horrifically the ones they loved after the atomic bombing.

Afterwards, we walked to the hypocentre, around which has been built a park. This park actually stands on the rubble of the old city, and is several meters higher than the ground would have been in 1945. Though the bomb detonated 500 metres in the air, so really it doesn't matter.

This (above) is the hypocentre. My Facebook has many more pictures of the park area and is well worth checking out. It was quite beautiful and contains the remains of Nagasaki's famous Catholic church, which was destroyed in the blast. Afterwards we travelled to the Peace Park, a park filled with statues from other countries, given in the name of solidarity. I have no idea if the Americans have had the cheek to send one of their own or not. My favourite of these (if one may use the word "favourite") was this statue to the left. It seems to be a striking use of the "burned-shadow" image, combined with a sense of unity and solidarity. The statue on the right here is Japan's own contribution, the Peace Statue, which is a lot bigger than it probably looks here. Again, water is a feature, again, representing the thirst experienced by immediate survivors. I forget exactly what the arms mean, but the outstretched one is pointed in the direction of the hypocentre (I think).

That concludes this depressing, moralising section of this blog.

Other stuff that happened, of a more fun nature, though to be honest we also watched the first episode of the 7th Season of House. We had food, in a Japanese restaurant, where ordering consisted of us pointing at pictures on a menu and hoping to god whatever came out was edible. Most of it was. :-)

We were also staying near Spectacles Bridge, called that because it apparently looks like a pair of glasses. See for yourselves. You can go down steps to a lower bank, and the entire river is just full of koi fish. I didn't have my camera with me though, which is a shame. It was pretty cool though. One thing I really loved about Nagasaki was the old stonework everywhere, some of it actually quite new, and some of it from the older parts of the city that survived the bombing.

Everyone was really friendly too, lovely people, which to be honest is almost surprising, since their whole city got destroyed for no particular reason and clearly if they decided white people were all monsters that wouldn't be something you could really hold against them. (Did I say I'd stop moralising? Apparently I'm a liar)

Not much else to really say about Nagasaki, except that it was really great and well worth a visit if your in Japan. And check out the facebook photos.

Signing off,

Shane!