today was a lot both mentally and physically. mostly mentally, though. wow what a day. it started out with a two hour shinkansen to hiroshima. it was pretty cramped because i was sat in the reversible section facing cam, megan, and fabian. but the company was companionable and i enjoyed chatting with them.

when we actually got to hiroshima we went to a little center to get lunch. i got gyoza and rice which was really good. then we headed to the a-bomb dome. it was really surreal to see, especially considering how close to the epicenter of the blast it was. it was so close, within 600 meters, and yet there it stood still relatively intact. once we soaked that in it was time to go into the peace museum.

wow.

it was heavy. really, really heavy. reading the letters that parents wrote to their children, or older siblings to their younger siblings made me cry. they were such mundane letters, people expressing love and a wish to see each other soon, and yet it’s the knowledge of knowing that they never got to meet again. it’s such a tragedy, and seeing the horrors and atrocities that these people had to live through —less than eighty years ago, mind you— is insane. the suffering they had to endure, not only during the bombing itself, but for decades afterwards too is just-. i really can’t put it into words. and the fact that the u.s. decided to drop another bomb on nagasaki too??? horrific.

it’s weird to say that i ‘enjoyed’ the museum, because there definitely wasn’t joy involved per se. but it was an experience i’m glad i did, and it genuinely did make me stop and reconsider things. it offered pieces of history that i wasn’t even aware of, as well as modern history. i didn’t know that biden had been doing nuclear tests, but apparently the mayor of hiroshima wrote an official letter and implored him to rethink things, so that the atrocities that were seen in japan were never recreated elsewhere.

on a more lighthearted note though, following dinner me, belle, liam, esther, brody, vincent, megan, and skyler all went to the pokemon center. i managed to snag a really cool mug that had a bunch of dark types on it, as well as stickers of ditto and magikarp, a small dewott plushy, and a relatively large dragonite plushy for my older brother. but time was quickly running out and we didn’t have enough time to get a cab back to the station so all of us had to absolutely haul. ass. to get back the shinkansen station on time. it was rough not gonna lie, but so incredibly worth it.

the train ride back was a quiet one as we all kept to ourselves. i mostly reflected on the day’s events, and listened to my music. overall i did have a good day, but like i said by the end of the day i was both mentally and physically exhausted. tomorrow should be fun though since it’s our free day, and i can finally start spending a bunch of money!