First of all, before I continue, I'd like to thank my American Rotary for generously sending me a care package! Probably the best thing about it was the massive bag of chocolate, haha. Just kidding. The best thing I got were all the letters from the Elementary School kids! They're so adorable! I'm in the process of writing back--my host father even took one and decided to write his own response, so one lucky kid gets post from him.
Also, if any Rotary people back home are reading this--would it be okay for me to send some stuff back for the kids? Like some Japanese candy or something? I think they'd enjoy it a lot, especially since Japanese candy is tasty.
Also thank you to my own parents, for sending my giant sweaters to me--they're doing a great job at keeping the cold out.
Alright, now what have I been doing for the past month or so?
I'm actually going to talk about marching band first, because that'll take a shorter time.
So anyway: just yesterday, the brass band and I went to Amagasaki in Hyogo Prefecture to do our marching show! It was so awesome. I'd like to say I got a lot of pictures, but unfortunately cameras weren't allowed. Still though, it was so cool! The thing about Japanese marching is that you don't watch from above, so formations and stuff aren't so important. What's important is timing and sound, and let me tell you, these kids had it in spades.
Even an elementary school performed, and I was just about ready to give the color guard an Oscar. They reenacted some sort of gladiator thing, and the girl playing the gladiator looked very, very anguished. What a day.
Our group played Disney, but old school Disney, like the Seven Dwarves and When You Wish Upon a Star. We didn't do nearly as well as the other groups (I'd like to blame it on the 3.5 mile marathon we had to run the day before), but it was still a lot of fun. The drum line from this one school killed. And another group was entirely drum line, which also killed. All the schools killed.
Alright, what else?
Well, like I said earlier, I went to Hiroshima with the other Rotary Exchange kids from my district. Actually it was a trip to Miyajima AND Hiroshima, for reasons I'm not entirely certain about.
So first we went to Miyajima by ferry, which I got some pretty cool pictures from.
I call this one boat aesthetic. I got many pictures of the boat aesthetic. Why? Me from a few weeks ago knows, but I sure don't.
Japan is so pretty. It's kind of hard to take a bad picture here, to tell you the truth.
After we landed, we walked around a little bit. Now I didn't realize that this was a thing, but apparently you can take pictures of and with deer on Miyajima. It was pretty interesting to watch. The photographer had about five deer hanging around him at any one time, and he'd occasionally give them a few snacks to placate their rabid hunger. What he'd do is he'd give the deer a few snacks right next to the photography area, and then run away really quickly before the deer got tired of chewing and take the picture.
Pictured from top to bottom, left to right: Two parents I don't remember the names of (I'm very sorry), Chalita from Thailand, me, Mr. Mizusaki, Allison from America, Kaja (pronounced 'Kaya') from Germany, Yurna from Indonesia, and Misaki from America.
Oh deer!
Heh. Also, see that red construct in the background? Apparently that's a pretty neat piece of history. I don't remember that piece of history right now since I don't have the pamphlet, but it still looks pretty cool.
That's a really heavy backpack, by the way. In case you were wondering.
Have some more pictures, just because!
After we finished taking pictures with the deer, we headed over to a shrine on the island. A little thing to know about shrines: at the entrance, there's a place where you wash your hands, for ritual purposes. You have to splash water on your hands in a special order, and at the end you can optionally wash out your mouth as well.
I decided to give the mouth washing thing a try, but in the end wasn't sure whether or not to spit the water out. I ended up carrying it in my mouth for about ten minutes afterwards, just smiling and nodding at anyone who tried to talk to me. That was a bit embarrassing.
But we got to look around the shrine, which made up for it.
I wish I'd used a filter to make the red pop more, but too little too late and all.
Le squad. I'd like to turn your attention to my very comfortable green sweatpants. I was perhaps the strangest looking one there, but you can bet I was the warmest.
After that we ate lunch in Miyajima, and then headed back to go to Hiroshima.
Now here's the thing about Hiroshima: I'm not going to talk about it too much. I don't think what I say is going to do it any justice. If you get the chance to go to Japan, make sure Hiroshima is on your destination list.
Hiroshima is a beautiful city; it's every picture a modern city, with streets that look like they were paved in the last year, and tall buildings everywhere. The people are young and vibrant, and the roads are bustling with cars and traffic.
It's a beautiful city. And yet, there is something off about it.
One thing you come to notice about Japan: for all that it's a highly modernized, advanced country, there are touches of traditional Japan everywhere. If you know where to look, you can find traces of an era that isn't quite yet bygone.
As a fellow exchange student said: "Everything looks new."
And then you see it: an old, blackened building in the center of the city. It's the kind of place that would've looked impressive years ago, but now is soundly dwarfed by skyscrapers. That is all that is left of old Japan in Hiroshima, the "Genbaku Dome". It's a peace memorial dedicated to the memory of all that was destroyed from the nuclear bomb during World War II.
Seriously, see it for yourself. Go to the museum, take the audio guide with you. I can guarantee that if you weren't against nuclear weapons beforehand, you will be. Of all the things that have existed in this great big beautiful world, the nuclear bomb should not have been one of them.
