(It took me five days to finish this entry; some parts were written at Kin's house, some were at the school, but most were written here in my house. There are around 20 pictures, so if they don't show up properly or instead show an x mark, right-click on the place where the picture is supposed to appear and select 'show picture'.)
After 15 days of marking my calendar, anxieties, excitement, surges of energy during the last days of work, doubts, tantrums, thinking over what-if's, sleepless nights (and now an incoherent sentence contruction), I am now back at Kin's house with Yu here in Hyogo--where this amazing summer break started--after one of my most unforgettable trips here in Japan. It feels so surreal; this past week was like a trip taken from my treasure chest of impossible dreams that until now it still feels so strange that everything actually happened, and I'm sure Yoshi is tired of hearing me say how unbelievable it is that I actually went to Hiroshima, for one-whole week, and toured almost around the whole eastern part of the prefecture, best of all, with him and his family.
I didn't expect it to be an all-expense paid trip, but it was--from entrance fees, ferry tickets and transportation to reservations and bookings--and I didn't need to reach for my pocket unless I wanted to buy souvenirs (though there were some times that even the souvenirs themselves were paid for by the Takehara's), and I felt really shy to be treated so specially, but at the same time very thankful that although it was their first time to meet me, I felt that I was a part of their family. We always ate breakfast and dinner prepared by Yoshi's mom; lunch we always ate outside, with only Yoshi's mom taking her wallet out everytime we finish eating. After losing weight because of my part-time job, 1 week of eating Hiroko's (Yoshi's mom) delicious meals was all it took to cancel out all the trimming-effects of working 7 hours a day in a printing press.
I also learned to play MahJong, which is really unusual because not many Japanese people play that game. It turned out to be a past-time of the Takehara family every time Yoshi comes home to Hiroshima, so after dinner we always headed to their game room. I learned the game fast, which amazed the Takehara's that when a visitor came, all of them immediately told the visitor how short the time it took me to start playing the game was (it's easy to learn the basics, but it takes some time to develop strategies). I did feel a bit guilty because ever since I learned how to play the game, someone had to sit out so just I could play. I was never an over-all winner, but I managed to edge out Yoshi in one of our games, though in the end Yoshi and I lost a thousand yen because we were the bottom two.
We went to some place everyday, and Yoshi had to drive everytime we went out except for one day when I went to Setoda onl with his parents. Yoshi told me that before going to Hiroshima, when we were still in Hyogo, he thought that he could rest again because that's what he usually does when he goes back to his hometown. He wasn't able to rest at all! We always slept late, woke up early, and he had to drive while I just sat down and sometimes slept inside the car. As if depriving him of his well-deserved time to rest wasn't enough, touring me around Hiroshima also ate his time for shopping. And because his mom took care of all the expenses for our tours, Yoshi, because of me, also lost his shopping money that his mom was supposed to give to him. You can imagine how much Yoshi hates me now, haha! Not that he really hates me.
Perhaps the only consolation is that he always won against me all the time we played Monopoly. I can't believe it! I used to be very lucky and I never went bankrupt at this game! Well, at least he had fun seeing me sell my properties whenever I landed at spaces that he owned, with fees more than 5 times the original because he always managed to build hotels while I was only able to build a maximum of one house per property. One week with Yoshi really made us a lot closer, and I'm really happy with how our trip turned out.
Pictures from my trip to Hiroshima raised the amount of space that all of my pictures here in Japan occuppies to almost 2 gigabytes. Though I really wanted to take pictures of about everything that we did, there were times that I decided not to take pictures like during dinner, since they might find it rude, but after two days they got used to me taking pictures of almost anything that I learned the Japanese word for stolen shot from Yoshi's mom, which she used everytime I took pictures. After 5 months of living here in Japan, I now have thousands of pictures of places that I've been to and events that I've attended, and yet, those pictures are not enough to tell how much I'm really enjoying my stay here, though they can show the people behind my happiness.
This entry is dedicated to Yoshi and the whole Takehara Family, for one of my best trips here in Japan.
The day we left Hyogo was simply beautiful: a clear sky, with patches of clouds here and there just enough to make the rays of sunlight delicate, delivering a comfortable warmth indicating that summer is over, that autumn has finally arrived. That day itself was a prelude to a great journey.
I still remain undecided if I should say if the level of my Japanese is already good or is still terrible, although for someone who's been here for just 5 months I think it's not that bad. I was able to open a bank account on my own, I do understand some TV programs now without the need of subtitles, and I fared well in the conversation during my first dinner with the Takehara's, though naturally I had some problems when they used their dialects. I can answer when being asked, I can ask and tell what I want and what I think, but sometimes it still feels frustrating that I can't express what I really want to say because I have to simplify things and make use of the limited vocabulary and grammatical constructions that I know.
The next day after our arrival, we didn't waste any time and immediately toured around Higashi-Hiroshima after waking up early to buy some groceries and food. The Mitsuji Tumulus was our first stop, and because it was not really that special compared to the one in Osaka, I decided to post this picture (that doesn't even show what the place we visited really looks like) since this was one of the best pictures taken during that day and because Yoshi readily posed for it. Yoshi is standing at the top of the Tumulus. On our way back to Yoshi's car after climbing down the Tumulus, we both agreed that a graveyard as big as what we visited is too big for just 3 persons and is a waste of land, though of course, Japan considers it a historical treasure the way Egypt guards its pyramids.
The wall we're leaning at in this picture is supposed to be famous, and I didn't realize that it was quite unique (because it looked plain) until I tried to recall if I've ever seen a wall like this before here in Japan, and couldn't remember if I ever did. It's the wall of a famous sake brewery, Kamatsura, a sake that Hiroshima is famous for, and after being introduced to this brewery I began noticing that Kamatsura is actually everywhere (I didn't really pay much attention to sake before). We headed to a shrine afterwards and said some prayers. Japanese have different ways of praying, with the number of times one claps varying, and the sequence of ringing the bell and dropping the coins differing from one person to another. The number of Japanese who practices any kind of religion is continually decreasing, and I didn't disagree with Yoshi when he said that it's not the way that we pray that matters.
On the first night that they played MahJong, I wasn't included since I didn't know the mechanics of the game. The person on the center of the photo is Yoshi's grandmother (who's already around 75 years old, and who's mother is about 95 years old and still alive). This picture was Yoshi's grandmother's last day of playing MahJong because from the following day up to our last day in Hiroshima, I played instead of lola. Playing MahJong was a nice bonding activity with the whole Takehara Family. But the bonding didn't end there, because after MahJong, while everyone took their turn in taking a bath, we usually went back to the kitchen and talked over coffee about our lives. Midnight coffee session was our intimate get-to-know-each-other activity.
Apparently, Yoshi told his mother that I really like chocolates, so during one of our midnight coffee sessions, aside from the usual cookies and coffee, there were chocolates! I told them that I don't want to eat chocolates that late at night, but in the end Yoshi and his mother were able to force me. Although I was quite hesitant at first to share my tragic life to them (well, it's not really that tragic considering that a lot of people out there helped us during the most tumultuous time in our life!), I decided to share it since it was the purpose of our coffee sessions and since I did feel at home with them. I learned one night that the reason why Yoshi is the only child is because his mother almost died during Yoshi's delivery, so the doctor advised Hiroko not to follow Yoshi with another child.
Day 3 was a big surprise for me because I went out only with the parents of Yoshi , and no Yoshi meant no English (Yoshi's father can understand English very well, but doesn't speak it). And I survived the trip! But of course not without drawing from my mind all the Japanese that I learned during the last 5 months (except, of course, the ones I learned from Mio and Yumi). This trip to Mihara and Setoda was actually planned to be a test of my Japanese, but more than just study it became a nice way to get to know the parents of Yoshi and at the same time allow them to discover more about me.
This is inside the Kosanji at Setoda Island. If I understood the explanation of Yoshi's parents correctly, Setoda has traces of the Chinese culture because it was near a trading area of the Chugoku Region. This is all I can make up of what I remember to be the explanation of Yoshi's parents and you shouldn't believe me because even I think that I might be wrong with this! Mihara and Setoda are still parts of the Hiroshima Prefecture, but it takes a ferry ride to reach Setoda Islands, so I had my first ferry ride here in Japan on our way there. We took a different road to get back home, and we passed by Takehara City (same as Yoshi's last name, but with a different kanji). Living for five months here in the mountainous area of Hyogo has increased my appreciation of the beauty of the sea.
I played MahJong for the first time during the evening of this day. While we were playing, Yoshi was saying something quite funny though it didn't really make any sense, so I was not able to stop myself from saying 'baka' to Yoshi, which in English means stupid. In front of Yoshi's parents. So Yoshi's mother repeated 'baka' with an interrogative tone as if making sure if she heard me right, and Yoshi responded that I know strange Japanese very well that when people are talking about strange things I can easily and quickly understand what they are talking about. He also told his mother that whenever I return back from Tokyo, my strange Japanese vocabulary seems to improve a lot, which is true thanks to my friends in Takushoku. I know more strange Japanese words than other foreign students that we know who have been studying here for about 3 years!
A visit to Hiroshima is never complete without going to Miyajima--considered as one of the 3 most scenic spots in Japan--and a stop at the famous torii in the sea of the Itsukushima Shrine. This is the southernmost part of Japan that I've reached in my 5 months here, and though I really dreamed of going to this place, I never thought that I would someday reach it. But there it was, the orange torii standing tall in the ocean with the greens of Miyajima greatly contrasting the colors on a bright Sunday afternoon. Japan is really beautiful.
The torii still dwarfed me, to think that I'm actually several feet closer to the camera than the torii in this picture. We were aboard the ferry on time to see the torii 'floating' in the sea, and arrived in the shrine just as the tide was going down so we were able to get close to the torii. Deers roamed around freely in Miyajima, traditional man-pulled passenger carts (jinrikisha) were available for a fee (like our very own kalesa except that a man pulled it instead of a horse), and the shoutengai where stores were lined up exuded a very Japanese atmosphere.
We were also on time to see a wedding ceremony at the Itsukushima Shrine. It's really rare to see such an event, so Yoshi told me that I was very lucky to witness a traditional Japanese wedding with a kagura performing rituals that looked like a dance to me (I was scolded by Yoshi and his parents several times because I kept on referring to the kagura as a 'dancing man' though they told me many times that he wasn't dancing). I told him that the fact that I was in Miyajima with them was enough reason for me to feel lucky. Anyway, Hiroko has a habit of telling me the Japanese term for things that aren't really used in daily life (like the white cap that the bride wore during the wedding, some unusual vegetables, etc), and whenever she does that Yoshi gets angry and insists to her that it's better not to tell me those words since I won't be using them and I won't remember them anyway.
A trip to an island wasn't enough for the Takehara family, so after crossing the sea we climbed up a mountain. This view is from the top of Ogonzan, a mountain somewhere in Hiroshima prefecture (I forgot the name of the city where it's located!), and you can see Saka City in this picture. They told me that I was too late for the cherry blossom season and a bit early for autumn, when, they said, the view becomes really fantastic.
I didn't expect us to go out everyday, but it appeared that it was their plan to bring me somewhere every single day of my one week stay in Hiroshima. After our breath-taking tour to Awajima, we were back to the sea for the third consecutive day, this time in Kure City. Kure used to be a ship yard during the World War 2 and it is home to the largest battleship ever built, the Battleship Yamato. If the name Battleship Yamato rings a bell, there's a chance that you've seen the popular anime inspired by this ship before. Anyway, I'm not really into ships, but I tried my best to show my appreciation to the Takehara's for their kindness and effort to tour me around Hiroshima although it was obvious that they were already tired too. I was not able to take many pictures because (aside from the simple lack of interest,) I spent so much time memorizing the things Hiroko and Yoshi were explaining to me to show them I'm listening (or that I'm quite interested). So I remember that a record (during that time) 9 battleships were built in Kure in just 2 years, that around 3000 people died in the ship when Yamato was destroyed, and that Yamato is 263 meters long, and other stuffs like that that can make the dear old lolos who built Yamato proud of me. In my efforts to show that I was listening I kept on asking questions that it even reached the point that we're already talking about Titanic, which of course was strange and had no relationship, as Yoshi pointed out, because it was a passenger ship and not a battle ship. Later that day we discovered that Titanic was just 5 meters longer than Yamato.
Before heading to the Peace Memorial Site (where the Americans dropped the atomic bomb) with Yoshi on my 6th day in Hiroshima, we went to the supermarket again, but this time minus Yoshi plus grandma. While we were looking at the meat section, grade school students who were having a class activity and conducting a survey at the supermarket approached us. So they asked me where I came from, and when I answered I came from the Philippines, I got oooh's and aaaah's because they didn't know that I am not a Japanese! This picture was taken using my phone because I forgot to bring my camera that day, so the quality is not that good.
I thought that after buying all the things that we needed for our dinner, our next stop was going to be the counter. But I was wrong, and we headed to the chocolates section; it seems that everyone in the family already knows that I like eating chocolates! Yoshi's grandma told me to select the chocolates that I want, and although I wanted to select the really good but expensive ones, of course I held back and went for the safe choice: a small box of Meiji Macadamia and Chocolate. Obaachan asked me again to get another one, and this time I went for a box of Meiji Milk Chocolate Mini's, and it was too late when I saw that it was quite expensive. Obaachan then picked up another box of Meiji Macadamia and Mini's, which she intended to give to Yoshi. Yoshi ended up giving them all to me, and until now I still have one box of Mini's.
It was a Tuesday when we went to the Peace Memorial Park and the A-bomb Dome, so Yoshi's parents had to go to work that day. I found this paper from the museum very interesting because it's an evidence that black does absorb more heat than lighter colors. When the atomic bomb exploded, it is said that a great ball of flame formed in the sky that emitted thousands of degrees of heat and extremely bright light. This paper was hundreds of meters away from the explosion site. The characters in this paper were written using black ink, and apparently, because they were dark, they were burned when the bomb exploded since they absorbed more heat than any other part of the paper. The same thing happened to people wearing kimonos with dark prints--the dark prints were imprinted (burned) to their skin.
In the background, between Yoshi and me is the A-Bomb Dome, one of the buildings that partially survived during the explosion. It has been reinforced three times, and it is the only remaining bomb-damaged building. Just last August this year, Hiroshima commemorated the 60th year after the A-bomb wiped out almost all everything in this place. Hiroshima has then served as a symbol of peace; it was the first time people saw the devastating effects of such a powerful weapon, and nobody wants a repeat of it. Until now, some countries possess nuclear weapons more than 3, 000 times as powerful as the one that exploded in Hiroshima, and as the guide audio in the museum stated, as long as those weapons remain, mankind is in danger. It's good to hear at least that there's progress in the talks with North Korea and that they have reached an agreement with the United States about dismantling their nuclear programs.
The final leg of our trip was the Mazda Museum. Mazda was established in Hiroshima, and if you go to Hiroshima you will notice that almost everyone uses a Mazda car. Yoshi's father works in Mazda, and Yoshi's car itself is a Mazda RX-7. While we were inside the Mazda Museum, Yoshi asked me to select the car that I liked most, and I selected the Red Roadster. He asked me why I chose the red one, and then I replied that it's because red is the color of blood, and he shouted at me! It was not the first time he shouted at me because I always gave him terrible answers no matter how serious he was in asking me. Anyway, Yoshi has one of the coolest cars in school. The car in the photo above is Yoshi's car, and this photo was taken last month. I only have one photo of our tour inside the Mazda plant because of a misunderstanding that led me to deposit my camera in a locker.
Although Yoshi's father did not go with us in our tour inside the Mazda plant, he told Hiroko that cameras are not allowed inside the plant and the museum, so before boarding the bus that toured us around Mazda, I left my camera inside a locker. When we finally arrived in the museum, which was a 10-minute bus ride away from where I deposited my camera, we discovered that people were not actually forbidden to bring cameras inside. By my seventh day in Hiroshima, everyone already knew how much I love taking pictures, so Hiroko felt sorry for me that I was not able to bring my camera. Later that night, while we were having dinner, Yoshi's parents had a little discussion about that, and Hiroko raised her voice a little bit when she said our trip to Mazda wasn't fun because we were not able to take pictures, to which his husband was not able to reply, and to which Yoshi concluded that Hiroko won. It was not a very serious row, so I joined in and said (in the most polite Japanese that I could come up with) that it was alright, that even though I was not able to take pictures, it was still fun because they were with me when I went to the museum. The food that Hiroko prepared on my last night in Hiroshima was really special--several kinds of seafoods, ebi tempura, salad, spring rolls, and rice with mushrooms and chestnuts--and that night I really ate a lot.
I did mention that I wanted to try Hiroshimayaki, Hiroshima's rendition of okonomiyaki, a food Osaka is popular for, that is basically like an omelette, though the taste is very different. I am not a big fan of okonomiyaki, and I said that it wasn't really important if we eat Hiroshimayaki or not, but on my last day in Hiroshima they made sure that I at least get a taste of Hiroshima's rendition of this popular Japanese food. Inside this omelette-looking dish is a generous mixture of shrimp, squid, chicken, bacon and cabbage. It was too big for me but I ate it all so I ended up feeling sick, but it was good although I think okonomiyaki is best shared because after eating half of it you just don't want to eat anymore. We went back home after eating because Yoshi wanted to sleep before his 5-hour drive back to Hyogo.
I was not able to say goodbye properly to Yoshi's parents because I thought that we were going to drop by the school where Hiroko works, but Yoshi decided not to. I did write a letter, however, while Yoshi was sleeping and I left it inside his parents room. I fell asleep during the first one-fourth part of the trip though I didn't really want to because I wanted to do my part to entertain Yoshi and make him feel that he's not alone in this trip since he's been doing all the driving while I was free to rest or do whatever I wanted to do. In a small move to show my appreciation for all the the things that Yoshi and his family did for me, I decided to pay for the highway fee (almost the same amount that I spend for my food for 2 weeks), and I decided to treat Yoshi for dinner.
Since it was the end of our summer vacation, I decided to invite Yu and Kin to join us in a thanksgiving dinner for making this summer great for me (and since I didn't spend money in our trip to Hiroshima). Unfortunately, Kin went to Mie for another race of his friend, so he was not able to join us (so now Kin is asking me to treat him too). We went to a kaiten sushi shop not far away from our houses, and we ate more than 30 servings of sushi.
So we came to it at last, the parting of ways after living for more than a week together. Yoshi dropped me off my house because I wanted to leave and get some things before going back to Kin's house where I slept that night, but he decided to wait for me to drive back me to the train station after I finished preparing. So it was in the train station where I last messed with the hair of the person who completed my summer vacation, and then I finally said my heart-felt thanks and goodbye to him.
It was an amazing journey with amazing people, itsu made mo kioku ni nokoru.
One week in Hiroshima allowed me to learn more about the prefecture and World War 2 related topics like warship production and the atomic bomb (it was pretty interesting to know that a clear day sealed Hiroshima's fate, there were other targets but the weather was perfect in Hiroshima that the Americans decided to drop the bomb there). I was also able to gain more insight regarding the Japanese family, and my experience with the Takehara's was very different from my experience when I stayed with the family of my other girl friends, which, I think, was because of the preference for a son over daughter, though I might be wrong with this since Yoshi doesn't have a sibling.
Best of all, I created new relationships, and my friendship with Yoshi became better and has now reached a different level, and I am truly happy with it.
When I received Yoshi's message inviting me to Hiroshima, at first I couldn't believe it because during that time we haven't seen each other for about 3 weeks since I spent most of my time with Kin and then I went to Tokyo and toured around with Yumi. I thought it was a joke, but then he told me that his parents already said ok and that our trip would last a week. Without even asking anyone from my part-time job if I could take a one-week break, I said yes to him.
I feel really happy that there are people who invite me to stay in their house, to tag along with them to a party, and to come with them to their hometown. I really appreciate it, and to have made great Japanese friends in my first five months here--it's really amazing. I do feel that I'm not doing my part good enough in being a good friend to my friends, but in one of our coffee sessions I was told that the reason why I have a lot of great Japanese friends is because the Japanese people see the good in me. It was a heart-warming thought, and I did feel good because in reality, my friends also see the bad side of me, but in spite of that, they're still here.
Yoshi was still the very unpredictable person that I know, and living with him for one-week was quite challenging in the sense that there were times that his unpredictability made me think hard about how I should approach him. It wasn't much of a problem, though, since I'm used to Yoshi getting angry at me and Yoshi's also used to me making him angry. And it was also pretty interesting that, like Tintin's boyfriend, Yousuke, Yoshi hates insects so much! The next day after going back here to Hyogo, I sent him a thank you letter for the great trip, and in that letter I wrote that I'm really happy to be his friend. I also inserted a huge, dead praying mantis inside the envelope in memory of the praying mantis that entered his room while we were in Hiroshima (which caused him to panic, and which I had to dispose for him). The first thing he did when we met each other and our other friends again in school was curse me. Hahaha! Yet, Yoshi, like all of my friends, is a great friend, and I am really happy that we are friends.
Yoshi's parents were really kind, and I am sure that it was not because there was a visitor in their house. Yoshi's father didn't talk a lot, and in my observation I think the whole family sees Yoshi as the head figure in the house, rather than Yoshi's father. Hiroko, Yoshi's mother, was also nice, and it looked to me that she had control of everything that happened inside the house. Overall, I really enjoyed the trip, because Hiroshima was really beautiful, and most of all, because I was surrounded by nice people.
On our way to the Peace Memorial, I told Yoshi how thankful I am for the opportunity that he gave me, because it was really like a dream. He told me that it was nothing, and because he lives in Hiroshima, he doesn't find Hiroshima a very special place. It wasn't really about the place, I replied. I can go to Hiroshima alone if I wanted to, but it was because I travelled with him and his family that really made the trip wonderful. I told him that more than the place, it's really the people you are with that makes a trip truly memorable. I said that I could be in hell, but still find some comfort in it if I was with people that I like. The next day, while we were in the car with Hiroko, and when they thought I was sleeping, Yoshi told his mother everything that I told him.
I received a touching e-mail from Hiroko during our trip back here to Hyogo, but what really moved me wasn't her message, but the last line of the e-mail where, instead of putting her name, she referred to herself as Nihon no Okaasan, or in English, [your] mother in Japan. Starting on my third day in Hiroshima, I stopped referring to Yoshi's parents as Takehara-san, and I started calling Yoshi's mom as okaasan (mother), his dad as otousan (father), and I did the same thing in referring to Yoshi's grandparents. That was during the time when they were touring me around Setoda without Yoshi, when I felt I was their child because instead of spending time with Yoshi who only comes home 4 times a year, they spent their money and time for me.
The last part of my trip to Hiroshima marked my 5th month here in Japan, which I told Yoshi and Hiroko while we were eating in a gourmet restaurant after our Mazda tour. It's hard to believe that 5 months have already passed since I first set my foot here in the country that's just four hours away by plane but quite unreachable in reality, but it's harder to swallow that I only have half-a-year left and that I'm already running out of time to spend for my friends here. It has been a life-changing experience for me, and my stay here has been continually changing me that it has caused me to rethink about my plans in the future that I have already thought about before.
Back in Hiroshima city, after the naturally depressing visit to the Peace Memorial Museum where graphic images of the terrible effects of the atomic bomb were displayed, we couldn't help but agree that we are so lucky to be living at this time, when people are more aware of the consequences of our actions, and when the world is relatively more peaceful. And, of course, to be living at this period with great friends like Yoshi, it's impossible for me not to think that it's such a great time to live.
I was supposed to pack my things for a one-week stay in Tokyo, but I ended up packing up for an operation and a one-month stay in the hospital.