World peace

Sitting on the side of the river in Hiroshima, chilling and looking at the beautiful tragic ruins of the Atomic Bomb Dome. Wishing I had a guitar so I could write another song about being nice to people. I'm sure tomorrow I'd think it was atrocious, but tonight it would be perfect.

It's dark and they are setting off fireworks behind the A-dome--real slowly, like one a minute maybe. Maybe they do this every night in the summer? No one seems overly excited except there's a few photographers out. The fireworks are shaped very distinctly like flowers. The sound is echoing down the river.

I like borrowing other people's towns for a couple of days.. Just hang out here instead of my own town. Of course there's more than just hanging out to do in Hiroshima, though. Today I stayed around here--the Peace park, museum, and Hiroshima castle. It's heavy stuff. After the museum and walking around thinking about it for most of the day, you really feel the human capacity to hurt other humans is ghastly huge.

The museum exhibits about Sadako and the thousand paper cranes, and then the memorial in the park in her honor remembering all the children who died because of the bomb were especially poignant: they remind me of what exactly made me want to come over here in the first place... In fourth grade, we studied World War 2 hard out. And sort of doubled with the war, we studied a lot of Japan. Funny how that happens, isn't it? At university, my world history teacher taught us through the perspective of the clash of civilizations as the driving factor in change. After the war, we all have been trying hard to understand each other. It was through studying this very disgust that made me want to know more way back then. And here I am... still trying my best to understand.

So give me a guitar and I'll write you a song really quick so we can make this feeling bigger and last longer.

Lala let's understand each other
Lala be nice to each other
Lala let's all be together
Lala respect and world peace world peace
Lala

(k, not a serious attempt at song writing)



PHOTO NOTE: The Second photo is the Children's Peace Memorial at night, just after they finished the fireworks and I left the riverside. It was put up especially in memory of Sadako. The little houses around it are full of paper cranes.

-- iPhoneから送信

場所:１丁目,広島市,日本

Vegetable donuts

Lately, I've gotten used to waking up in the morning--as opposed to statin up ungodly late and sleeping til the afternoon as my work schedule suggests. In return, I get to see the morning light, get a few extra hours in my day, and get morning donuts.

Mister donuts, the donut shop most popular in Japan and conveniently located 3 minutes from my house, has a new line of donuts. They're more like cake than donuts actually, and include fruit flavors like caramel apple, traditional flavors like cinnamon chocolate, and vegetable flavors like spinach and sweet potato. So far my favorite two flavors are spinach and sweet potato and milk!

Donut paired with Japanese study works out to be a very enjoyable morning. I'm glad I got up today

-- iPhoneから送信

場所:２丁目,西尾市,日本