Kristin Reporting!
We slept in til 10AM today because our Mom kept us on the phone til 1:18AM last night!! I just called her for 5 minutes worth of information, and an hour and a half later... For one hour of the call it was, "Mom, I gotta go."..."Ok, let me just tell you one last thing..." its annoying that she does that, but it’s also kind of cute, and who can blame her? She just wanted one hour of talk time, not really all that much to ask for, but it was not good for our sleep schedule! But, on the flip side, I did wake her up at 7:45AM in the morning when I called last night so I did kind of owe it to her to have a nice, long conversation that left her feeling satisfied and ready to tackle her day!
After sleeping in, I still had to use the hotel internet to do some family bill/tax related stuff before we could leave. Then we packed up and headed back to the ship. We got out of the hotel about 11:30AM. Not an early start!
Before we got on the train to head to the ship, we popped in to a post office and sent our backlog of postcards and sent Scott the Australian Dot Art Card that I made for him at a ship craft class.
Our 7 day Japan Rail Pass, which got us all over the country this past week, expired yesterday. So we had to pay a fare today like normal people. It was easy and fun to use the machines. It was a 18 minute ride south to Itsukaichi station.
When we got off at the station, we noticed Queen Elizabeth shuttles were coming to the station. There was a HUGE line for the shuttles, and we decided we would rather walk than wait in line. But, we were surprised at the lack of English signs and the fact that everyone waiting for the shuttles appeared to be Japanese! We thought, "WOW! How did the composition of the ship's passengers change THIS dramatically??"
It turned out that it hadn't. It took us 30 minutes to walk to the ship. The bus probably made it there in 20. There was horrendous traffic on the bus route and we actually walked faster than the buses for a long stretch of time! We were happy that we only wasted 10 minutes at most by walking, because it turned out that most of the people on the bus were just regular Japanese citizens. If we had shown our ship cards, we could have cut to the front of the line!
[Davin Interjection: The ship is really huge, even if it isn’t one of the largest in the world. It was really deceptive how far away it was. We kept thinking we were almost there, and then a mile or two later we finally made it to the ship! It was also confusing how to reach the ship. The only reason we were able to figure it out was that there were people holding signs showing the way to go. Apparently Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Hiroshima was actually something of a noteworthy event.]
Apparently today was Queen Elizabeth's maiden call to Hiroshima. There were throngs of Japanese people coming just to see the ship and take pictures of it. In addition, special theatrical entertainments were being put on in a building at the port for both the passengers and the Japanese people who came to see the ship. AND, some of the Japanese citizens were signed up to get TOURS of the ship! We saw groups of Japanese people being brought around the inside of the ship! This was very surprising because all of the Cruise Ship companies are very strict about who gets to go onboard the ship for security reasons. Davin and I discussed that the people must have been screened very well, and perhaps this was being offered as a bit of a marketing ploy to introduce the Japanese people to the benefits of cruise travel in order to expand the cruise market in Japan, which is currently not well developed.
We dropped our travel backpacks in the room and went up to the grill to get some lunch. D hadn't had any breakfast, and I had eaten one leftover doughnut from the night before. It was now about 1:30PM. When we got to the grill we thought it was closed because none of the condiments were out where they normally are. But, the chef was there and he took our order. Once the burgers arrived, we decided to eat inside because it was a chilly day. We walked to the middle of the buffet area and that is when Davin noticed that NO ONE COULD SERVE THEMSELVES!
All of the serving areas were blocked with clear saran-wrap, and staff stood by to serve guests drinks. Horrified, D turned to me and said, "Norovirus must have broken out on the ship! Let's go eat outside!" So, we did an about-face and went outside to eat by ourselves. So, there you have it, we are once again on an afflicted ship! Hopefully we won't get sick again. At least we saw Japan though! If we go down now, it will suck, but it won't be the end of the world.
[Davin Interjection: I was really not thrilled to see norovirus was spreading. It made me even happier that we’d left the ship, because I really would not have been happy if we stayed on and got sick! That would have seriously ruined the trip for me!
I also think it’s ironic because after a bunch of Japanese passengers got on in Hong Kong, some Japanese woman told me I wasn’t allowed to fill the Bubba from the hot water dispenser– which I’d already been doing for more than three weeks, and would continue to do for months afterwards with no one on the crew saying anything!– and then it was the Japanese who brought norovirus on board! (The restriction against refilling bottles I believe only applied to the cold water dispensers, not the coffee or hot water ones!)]
Loaded up on cheeseburgers and french fries, we headed out to go to Miyajima Island to see Itsukushima Shrine. We only had time to see one site because it was already mid-afternoon and the ship was leaving at 6:30PM. So, we scratched going to see the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb sites. Honestly, no loss. I feel depressed visualizing hundreds of thousands of dead and/or suffering people.
I will say this: Usually when such a mass murder occurs it is a tragedy, and there is no shade of gray. In the case of the two atomic bombings of Japan, this country was the aggressor in the war. Japan was spreading the ideology to its people that the Japanese were a superior race of humans. They were raping and killing women in China, they conducted several genocides, and carried out death marches of Asian prisoners and Allied POWs. They were torturing their prisoners and starving them to death. The people of Japan either supported their government or did nothing to try to stop the war.
We then dropped two atomic bombs on two cities which had military targets in them. America killed hundreds of thousands of "innocent men, women and children". This is a story with massive amounts of shades of gray. It is still sad to think of the deaths of these people and the horror these two cities faced. But, honestly, in my opinion, it was a well justified action on the part of our country. Some say it was an abhorrent act because Japan was losing the war. We were taking island by island from them. They were going to lose. Our military leaders argued that as many of our soldiers would have died in that action as were killed by the atomic bombings.
I also think there was some dishonor in the decision to drop the bombs. I think we wanted to try them out and see what would happen. I think we wanted to spare our men's lives even if the number lost was going to be fewer than how many people died in the bombings. I think they didn't know how deadly the bombs would actually be. They were two different types of bombs, and scientifically they wanted to set them both off. But, no one can say that Japan didn't honestly deserve it. They killed so many people, their regime was as evil as Hitler and the Nazis.
So, dropping those bombs was sad, because death is always sad, and I feel for the families who lost loved ones because of it, but I don't really feel sorry for the dead the way that I would if they were completely innocent victims. I learned a lot about Japan and WW2 in college. Many people in Japan also lost their lives in horrible fire bombings. It all comes down to the fact that war is terrible for every side involved. And I think that is the message of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima atomic bomb memorials. They don’t want an apology, they want the events to serve as a reminder of what war is, and want to send out a wish that no country has to go down that path again. Of course, in reality, we are a long way from living in a world without war.
So, we skipped that horrifying stuff and headed instead to another Japanese shrine. We took the ship shuttle back to Itsukaichi station and took the train a bit further south to get the Miyajima ferry to Miyajima island. We left the ship about 2:00PM, and we reached Miyajima Island at 3:15PM. It was only a ten minute walk to Itsukushima shrine. This island also had a bunch of wild deer! They were everywhere!
When we arrived we remembered that this shrine was supposed to be really cool because it seems to be floating on water. Unfortunately, the tide had gone out, so it was a shrine on short stilts above wet sand! Hahaha! But it was a mixed disappointment because, on the one hand, it is more impressive with water, but on the other hand, it would really be cool to experience it both ways.
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| Locals digging for clams or something! |
We also paid to enter the 'Treasure Hall' which contained special artifacts. Unfortunately, we couldn't take any pictures inside. You had to remove your shoes like you do at most shrine and temple sites in Japan. We mostly enjoyed a painting of an old woman living on a mountain, who had horrible teeth and looked a bit like a skinny ogress. The color and style were very nice, and she was amusing. We also liked an ink painting of a grizzly wizened old man with a wooden staff and a super tall bald head. His head was three times tall as normal. I think it was a sign of intelligence. He reminded us of the Erudite race from the original EQ (EverQuest).
There was also a huge wooden pattern that was essentially a giant stamp for putting patterns on clothing, and a cup attached to a string which was supposed to teach people the lesson of moderation– the cup would only balance upright when 80% full, any more or any less and the cup would tip. There were some swords (tachi and katana) with what we now recognize as shark skin handles, and a huge wooden sign that once was on the red torii gate out in the water (the current torii gate in the water is the 8th generation gate). As well as, long scrolls covered in writing and backed with gold and green leaf or painting on the back side– very stunning.
When we left the treasure hall, we headed back to the ferry. On the way, I picked up a souvenir pin and we found our postcard for the day! We checked a tonkatsu curry restaurant to see if they were open for dinner, but they weren't so we decided to just take the ferry back to the mainland. By the way, it was freezing cold this afternoon with the wind blowing fiercely! Brrr!
[Davin Interjection: Once again a Japanese restaurant refused to serve us! This time it really made no sense at all. There were people inside the restaurant, and I saw the serving woman conferring with an older woman as to whether we should be seated. The time had to only be about 4:30 which was pretty close to dinner, and yet they were not serving. There were still tons of people on the island, so why weren’t they taking people’s business? If the restaurant had no patrons it was their own fault for having absolutely bizarre hours.
This is one aspect of Japan that I simply do not understand at all. Closing at 9 PM might have some justification (even though it’s ridiculous in a train station where throngs of people are still around at 10 PM), but just being closed at a little bit after 4 PM is totally nonsensical! If they were only open for lunch then they should have closed hours before, so what the hell was going on?!]
In the end, we decided to skip eating out and just took public transportation back to the ship. We didn't have enough time for a sit down dinner. We caught one of the last shuttle buses so we didn't have to walk again. We got to the ship at 6:00PM which was prime dinner eating time. We wanted to wait to stay away from potential norovirus carriers. D took a two hour shower, and I worked on backlogged blog entries. I actually got one posted with pictures in 9 minutes of internet time, and it was 18 pictures, so I'm hopeful I can do most of them quicker than that!
Other than that, I watched some Babylon 5 in the background while I picked out pics for the blog post, and sorted through postcards to send to people. I chose who to send which cards to and am ready to start writing. I also got our postcards from this week's travels up on our postcard door!
Today was a good day, and it’s great to be back on the ship and able to just crash and relax at the end of the day! The only downside is that we have to be a bit scared about possibly getting sick! :-/
[Davin Interjection: Our time in Japan was good, and under ideal circumstances I think I could have spent another week there. However, I was also a bit relieved to be back on the ship. We push ourselves pretty hard when we’re traveling, and I was kind of burned out!]
Next Stop: Okinawa, Japan (March 26, 2016)
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