Miyagebanashi: The Blast

On August 6^th, 1945 the United States unleashed the power of ‘Little Boy’ onto the unsuspecting citizens and military personnel of Hiroshima. On August 9^th, 1945 the United States would drop another atomic weapon–this one dubbed ‘Fat Man’–onto Hiroshima. 60 years later, I would visit Hiroshima to witness the aftermath.

First off, let me provide some background to this story, the second in our series of Miyagebanashi (you can find the first here). On March 11^th, 2005 for whatever crazy reason, I decided it would be a good idea to spend 10 months of my sophomore/ junior year of high school living in Japan–without any previous knowledge of Japanese or Japanese culture. Sure, I knew about ninjas, samurai, and tsunamis.. but that was about it. I had never spent more than two days away from home, and had never even left the east coast of the United States. As for the end of World War II, during the course of my high school education, I had of course heard about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima/Nagasaki and the destruction these bombs caused, but nothing beyond that. For all I knew, the city was still destroyed, a desolate crater in the middle of Honshu. I’m of course exaggerating but I’m sure you still get an idea of the level of my knowledge on this subject.

Miyagebanashi: Nikko

This is the first entry in our series of Miyagebanashi 「土産話」, or travel-stories from our various visits to Japan, and to start I’ve chosen Tochigi Prefecture’s Nikkou ｢日光」, not coincidentally the same place that Tokugawa Ieyasu chose to be buried and subsequently deified, and where, later, an incredibly elaborate shrine was built to honor him, the Toushouguu 「東照宮」. He didn’t actually commission the Toushouguu shrine; his grandson Iemitsu did, after which he immediately commissioned his own, the Taiyuin-byou. These two shrines, along with two much less ostentatious Buddhist temples–the Rinnoji and Futarasan temples–make up a close-quartered quartet of Japanese religious sites, all lying within about a 600-foot distance of each other.