The night before i didn’t felt very well, but i just decided that if i was ok the next day, i’d go to Hiroshima. I have this city stuck in my mind since the date of the bombings was one day before my birthday (i was born 25 years and 1 day later). Of course it’s not the date that make the idea of going there impressive. It was the first city on Earth destroyed completely by an atomic bomb, and somehow where physics lose its innocence. Science is not an innocent game, as Nobel realised, or other sciencients who made some politics knew, as Galileo, Newton… So I had to go to Hiroshima.  I woke up very early, at 4.30, and actually that night i couldn’t sleep at all. Anyway, i went there with my bike, couldn’t get a matcha frappucino (too early for that) and i got the train and after the Shinkansen to Hiroshima, nearly 4 h, i slept all the way. Just woke up in the Hiroshima eki, arrived there and took a coffee and walked to Hiroshima center. It was 11.30, i knew that i couldn’t arrive on time at 12, and it was so hot and humid…  just went waking with my map, was a common city like every other in Japan… i arrived to the first milestone: a bronze plate which said that we were at 850 metre from ‘the impact’. Kept on walking, and heart run faster and sadder, as if it was shrinking…. 450m… more walking and i just see that: the ‘A dome’: the symbol of all destruction and all hope, as it was just one out 3 buildings that survived. Nothing else in the city, well, another two bridges. Nothing else at  8.15. Nobody. Nobody? some people survived in the bunkers or in a some lucky way… i arrived to the ‘Park peace’, and i was so impressive: so many people, and so many tsuru as symbol of longevity, as that little girl wanted, just being alive to make 1000 paper cranes… i listened to some concerts and went to the museum. Also very impressive: copies of the letters of Einstein, sent to the American president, Oppenheimer’s replies…. all of it was exposed in a very simple way, any self-pity feeling  or so. I found something that also i was looking for there: some declaration saying that yep, Japan did it wrong in the war, of course, and ‘all of us should work together with our mutual pain as a gift for the future’.  I also saw all the telegrams that every Hiroshima mayor send to every president who carries out atomic tests, ..maps with nuclaer arsenal and so… after so much stuff, i went to see some of the survivors: some pine trees that were very close to the area, and to the human ones: I listened, but it was in japanese, an speech of one of the of the survivors, was pretty impressive to me. I’m still sad as i knew that the president used to meet them in such an important occasion, every 6th of August since then, and now it’s not being done anymore. In an institutional way, Japan wants to forget its past… some gaijin want to remember. We can’t forget. We shouldn’t forget. At least, i’m relieved because the Hiroshima people, the affected ones, don’t wanna forget, and it can be felt that they know the meaning of the word ‘Peace’.

After that i went to roam around… to the Memorial, also quite good, and i made some more origami tsuru, to leave them in the Memorial. After another concert and an okonomiyaki, i kept my way to he Hiroshima castle, reconstructed of course, and went to the Hiroshima koen, nice park, very relaxing and full of turtles. Tired of that intense day, i came to the station at 6, got the shinkanken and slept all the way to Tokyo.