Sat. Feb 6.
Today was one of the big days on the diary. Ikoma City Library. It was the by now usual early breakfast, and out. By the time I got there the hall was being prepared. All I could do was wait. Which I did - until 12.00. The place was full for the session, practically all Japanese. I gave them 1 hour 45 minutes. Amazing to think that an audience in Japan would listen to Irish stories for so long.
Mon. Feb 8. Hiroshima:
This was a visit that I need not have made. But who could avoid a visit to Hiroshima? I'm glad I took the opportunity. And not just for the visit to the university or the journey on the Shinkansen - interesting as that was for its elegant looks, smoothness and speed. No. The university students, many of them, were like our own in Ireland - geeks - hiding behind computer-screens. And when asked to move up in order to spare my voice, they seemed to panic. What an odd generation we're rearing nowadays! Yet others who were interested were very much so.
The highlight (lowlight?) of Hiroshima - though one I'd never heard of - has to be the Peace Memorial. Its walk-through exhibition museum of the Bomb leaves little to the imagination. The silence among the crowds of visitors said all that needed to be said about the A-bomb and its consequences.
The one horrible thought that the whole place leaves one with is: "What need for the Nagasaki Bomb?"
Anyone should see that horrible place.
Perhaps that's why the sign "Don't feed the crows" directly when you come out seems so comical, yet so necessary. And it's true.. Because they're there.
Life goes on regardless.
Today was one of the big days on the diary. Ikoma City Library. It was the by now usual early breakfast, and out. By the time I got there the hall was being prepared. All I could do was wait. Which I did - until 12.00. The place was full for the session, practically all Japanese. I gave them 1 hour 45 minutes. Amazing to think that an audience in Japan would listen to Irish stories for so long.
Mon. Feb 8. Hiroshima:
This was a visit that I need not have made. But who could avoid a visit to Hiroshima? I'm glad I took the opportunity. And not just for the visit to the university or the journey on the Shinkansen - interesting as that was for its elegant looks, smoothness and speed. No. The university students, many of them, were like our own in Ireland - geeks - hiding behind computer-screens. And when asked to move up in order to spare my voice, they seemed to panic. What an odd generation we're rearing nowadays! Yet others who were interested were very much so.
The highlight (lowlight?) of Hiroshima - though one I'd never heard of - has to be the Peace Memorial. Its walk-through exhibition museum of the Bomb leaves little to the imagination. The silence among the crowds of visitors said all that needed to be said about the A-bomb and its consequences.
The one horrible thought that the whole place leaves one with is: "What need for the Nagasaki Bomb?"
Anyone should see that horrible place.
Perhaps that's why the sign "Don't feed the crows" directly when you come out seems so comical, yet so necessary. And it's true.. Because they're there.
Life goes on regardless.