Visiting Kyobashi and Preparing for Hiroshima

This week is frightfully busy so please forgive me for lack of communications... I have midterms coming up and am already stressed... But anyway, here's what happened over my weekend.

Friday
I spent the day attending four classes and all were given almost completely in Japanese. Of course, Speaking and Reading classes were naturally in Japanese, but there was a guest speaker for two periods of Dynamics (I had to show up at 1 and at 4 that day) and he only spoke in Japanese. Though Dr. Scott translated, my head still hurt because I found myself doing my own translation as best I could. It was quite interesting because I knew so much more than I thought I did. However, my head REALLY hurt. Hence, I must work harder at my Japanese so my head doesn't hurt so bad when I have to think in Japanese for the entire day.

Saturday - Peace Osaka
My dynamics class went on a field trip to Peace Osaka (we're beginning our preparations for Hiroshima this week). I got up early (for me anyway) and road the train with Krissy to meet our group at Hirakata. We took the train to Kyobashi and then switched to the JR Loop Line and road to the second stop on the JR Loop (with a long name that starts with Mori and I can't remember the rest of it). There, we took a two minute walk down the street to Peace Osaka. The museum features only three exhibits (it was very small).

Exibit A is of what happened to Japan during the 15 year war (which, btw, is the Japanese name for the Pacific War of WWII because it was involved in fighting long before it attacked Pearl Harbor). Osaka was almost completely burned to the ground--so everything you see built today is relatively new. Osaka was chosen as a militery target because it was the base of many factories during the war. Exibit A also had several letters, diaries, and draft notices on display, as well as a to-scale firebomb model and a model of a house with a bomb shelter--which were completely ineffective against fire.

Exibit B is downstairs and mostly displays what Japan did during the war. Most of the exibit was on Japan's occupation of Korea. Nanking was there but if Dr. Scott hadn't instructed us to look for it, I never would have noticed it. It's in a corner and is difficult to find unless you're looking specifically for it. The museum also addressed Pearl Habor in a fairly large section, and had a small section on treatement of POWs (in the rare occasion that the Japanese took POWs). Next to Pearl Harbor is a section on Hiroshima that is of equal size and mostly filled with artifacts showing you what happens when an Atomic Bomb suddenly blows up in your city. In a lot of ways, these two incidents are interesting when viewed side-by-side. The only thing I didn't like about this exhibit was that on the other side of the Hiroshima Section was a small section on Auswitz. Draw your own conclusions, but to me, sticking Auswitz in an exibit about the Pacific War seems out of place and out of context. It seemed to be saying "yeah, we did all this, but the Germans did worse things." But, when you look at the photo of an allied POW and a Jewish concentration camp survivor, the only physical difference I could see was that one was wearing a dog tag and the other wasn't...

Exibit C was a special exibit that is changed approx every month. This month's exibit was split between a few different things. First, there was a few paintings of samurai, a small corner dedicated to Darfur, and a corner dedicated to the Iraq War. Interesting to see your own wars through another country's eyes.

A note about Peace Osaka. It was built by the Osaka City Government and is subject to controversy in Japan. Conservatives feel that the museum is too graphic and represents Japan beating itself over its past. Liberals feel the museum isn't graphic enough--it doesn't give you a really good picture of what exactly happened and only by seeing is Japan going to remember what happened. I think that (excepting the Auswitz section) the museum was just right--it's not so graphic that it's revolting and frightening, but it doesn't glaze over the painful parts either.

Saturday - Osaka Castle
After Peace Osaka, Dr. Scott let us go and told us that if we walked through the Osaka Castle grounds, we'd eventually find ourselves in Kyobashi and save ourselves 200 yen in train fare. So, of course, Krissy and I went and walked through the park. It was an absolutely beautiful day and the park is definately a good place to go. The grounds are fantastically beautiful and it takes a good hour just to walk through it (especially if you're like me and taking many pictures while you're at it).

Inside the main gate there was a peddler with a pet cockatoo that performed tricks for us (roll over and play dead was one of them). For 100 yen, we could watch the tricks, feed the bird some sunflower seeds, get our picture taken with the bird (with our own cameras), and buy a photo of the bird in various places around Osaka. That's a whole lot for 100 yen!

As for the castle itself, inside is a museum. I'm not sure who it's dedicated to (I think the Tokugawa shogunate judging by how many times his name showed up, but I can't say for sure). The view at the top is beautiful, but the museum is frightfully dull and such a let down. It has only a very few artifacts (one floor out of 5) an the rest of the museum is dedicated to videos you watch describing acts of samurai (in the most boring of possible ways to describe it) and has almost no visual interest (no models of what the castle grounds looked like before it was reconstructed, no models of what the inside of the castle looked like... sigh). So I recommend you go to Osaka Castle if you're ever in the area, but don't spend the 600 yen to go to the museum inside.

There is another museum of some sort on the castle grounds--I think it is a history museum--but by the time we finished Osaka Castle, we were museumed out and ready to find somewhere to eat. Fortunately, Dr. Scott had mentioned that in Kyobashi near the Crystal Tower there is a Subway and a Wendy's. Though we never found the Wendy's (another adventure for another day, I guess), we did find the Subway. And it was absolutely wonderful. Krissy and I were so happy after finding it.

I returned home around 6 pm, at dinner around 7, and went to bed around 8 because I was exhausted.

Sunday
Not much happened on Sunday except that my purse broke (it's about time--I've had it for five years) so I was forced to go buy a new one. So I went and spent the day at Kuzuha (it's only 15 minutes by bike) and finally found a purse that I liked. It's rather nice and it wasn't on sale so I spent more than I would have spent in US but purses here are expensive even on sale. And besides, this purse will last me at least another 5 years (if not 10) so I'm happy. Spent the rest of the day studying as best I could.

Monday
Monday was Health and Sports Day, so there was no class. Aki-chan celebrated by going to her volleyball club, my host father celebrated by spending some quality time with his bicycle, and Yoshi-chan and my host mother cleaned the house. I slept in and then cleaned my room after going out for lunch with my host mother and Aki. We ate at this place called Tomato and Onion, where I ate what I can only describe as a Japanified hamburger. It was the meat, some mushrooms, and mayonaise, and that's all. And fries on the side. It was delicious but it was definately not a real hamburger! Aki asked if it was like hamburgers in America so of course I said no but that it was good. She was surprised to find out that hamburgers come with bread, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, mustard, ketchup, and mayonaise, and sometimes pickles, relish, and everything else too. She said Makudo? (which means good old Mickey D's) and I said sorta only a whole lot better.

After dinner and cleaning my room, I discovered how to get to Makino from my house, hopped on a train to Kyobashi, switched to JR Loop Line and ended up in Imamiya, where I met with Justin and watched rented episodes of TV shows from the US. In english, with Japanese subtitles. Because we had nothing else better to do. I never thought I would say this, but three day weekends are overrated because there isn't enough time to go anywhere special and by the third day you get really bored out of your mind. The tv show is called Supernatural and is like crossing Ghost Busters with Butch and Sundance, and then trying to make this combination as suspenseful as Silence of the Lambs (and being rather unsuccessful), but being a stereotypical ghost hunter flick at the same time. The show was good entertainment because we sat there predicting what would happen next and making fun of it. It was good though because every once in a while it would throw in a plot twist you weren't expecting. I'm no where near hooked though...

Ate at a restaurant in Kyobashi on the way home where I had Japanified italian food, which, surprisingly, was absolutely fantastic. As in "must remember where this restaurant is" good. Oh and strawberry shortcake which was entirely too much sugar but oh so good.

And Currently...
And now I'm sitting in the computer lab catching up on my notes of the weekend. I have lots to do this week and next week--I have midterms next week and no chance to study this weekend because I'm going to Hiroshima, so my studying has to take place this week. Great. I also changed the information bar to the right--hope you enjoy it.

Life is stressful and busy and will remain so until midterms are over. Hope I make it to the weekend...