You know what this is, of course. It’s impossible to be alive in 2004 and not know what happened 160 meters from the Industrial Promotion Hall of Hiroshima Prefecture on 6 August, 1945. This is, arguably, the seminal image of the first half of the 20th century; the starkness of what it represents meant that we spent the second half of that century trying to prevent it from happening again somewhere else. I walked down to the river tonight, sat in the park around the A-Bomb Dome, took pictures, and drank my Coke. I thought about what had happened here, and how strange it seems — how distant it is. Hiroshima is a modern, bustling Japanese city — neon, cars, sleek hotels with hardwood floors, funky fashions and hundreds of restaurants. 59 years ago standing in this spot might not have been such a good idea. Yet here we are. That light standard just off from the middle of the picture? It’s left field at Hiroshima Municipal Stadium.

I walked around thinking about tragedy and its effect on a city, on a nation, on a culture. I thought about 9/11, arguably one of the defining moments of my generation. (I would not be one of the people who would argue it, but work with me here.) There are those who would suggest we cannot forget what happened that day, but I think what they really mean is that they want us to dwell on it, pick at the scab, refuse to let it heal. They have motives behind these arguments, agendas that require pain to advance without complaint. For those who lost loved ones in the catastrophe life will never be the same, of course, but we move on, as Tennyson said, as the world darkens around us. What we choose to do, and how we choose to honor the dead, is entirely up to us.

Hiroshima might not be a bad place to find inspiration. You’d think that with all this tragedy — a couple orders of magnitude more dead than 9/11 — Hiroshima might be a sad place to visit. (There will undoubtedly be someone who thinks I’m trivializing one incident or the other by tying them together. The point isn’t what happened, the point is how we deal with grief. Loss is loss, no matter how it occurred.) I’d be lying if I said the Dome and Peace Memorial Park weren’t moving in the dark, thought-provoking in their own ways. But here’s something I’m willing to bet $10 you didn’t know: On a Friday night in early fall, in 2004, these two places are the make-out spots for Hiroshima teenagers.

Little cats roam the park. (J., one of them looked like a small version of Hilti, and about as affectionate.) Couples spoke softly in the dark alcoves, away from the light standards, in the shadow of this most iconographic of buildings. From the Heiwa-Ohashi Bridge came folk music, guitars and taiko drums and harmonicas (you’d think this combination wouldn’t work, but amazingly it does). I heard kids laughing and racing around, I saw men and women walking together, enjoying maybe the finest evening since I got to Japan. And I realized I was watching the re-born Hiroshima — mindful of the past, aware of the past, but beyond it at the same time. So far as I could tell, I was the only person whose purpose in visiting the Park and the Dome was.. visiting the Park and the Dome. Everyone else — I mean everyone else — was either crossing through the park on their way somewhere else, or walking with someone and laughing, or engaged in the intricate exploration of another person’s tonsils, or doing the things that have brought joy to humankind from the beginning of our understanding of joy.

I wondered if I’d see couples flocking to Freedom Park (or whatever they’re going to name it) to make out within my lifetime.

Hikari 367 left Himeji this afternoon at 15:30, on the nose, as you would expect. I started the day up on Mt. Shosha, home to Engyoji, a collection of Buddhist temples and sub-temples up in the hills of Hyogo-ken northwest of Himeji. It was a nice way to start the day, albeit somewhat inauspiciously — my bus managed to hit a small car on the way out of town. There was little damage, and no injuries (and I felt perfectly happy staying where I was — out of the way), and it only delayed our arrival at the Mt. Shosha ropeway by about 20 minutes. Searching the depths of my memory I’m reasonably sure there was some kind of Buddhist rite I could have performed that would have canceled out the effects of the minor MVA this morning — it would have saved me some considerable pain later in the day.

I know I said I was going to try taking it easy for a couple of days but the trip up to Engyoji made that kind of impossible: While a bus is provided for wusses, I declined to wait and started walking. Up the steep 800 meter path up the side of the mountain to the main offices of the temple. It turns out this was (a) stupid and (b) the wrong way to go, though it was very scenic. My leg started bothering me almost immediately. Many breaks were necessary. Also, I need to get in shape before climbing mountains. Ugh.

Maniden was the focal point of my visit to Engyoji. There are a number of other world historical sites within the temple complex but by the time I made it up the east path I was too spent to consider hiking anywhere else. Like Kiyomizu in Kyoto, it was built without nails; unlike Kiyomizu, it dates from the last century since the thing burned down in the early 1900s. The cablecar attendant told me that Tom Cruise had come to Engyoji to film part of The Last Samurai though I’ll be damned if I can figure out where he did it, or what part was filmed there. There were some truly neat moments, such as the arrival of a dozen pilgrims, faces flushed with the exertion of climbing up the mountain, who then climbed up to Maniden and soon thereafter began chanting so loudly you could almost hear it echo across the valley.

Worth a visit, but don’t bring your broken body.

Koko-en, the gardens I wanted to visit yesterday while the light was good: I’m really torqued that they closed when they did, because it would have been so good then. In the middle of the day they were still beautiful, but would have been a thousand times better with the liquid gold pouring down. There isn’t too much to say about the gardens itself, except that Koko-en is unique in that the nursery is included on the walking tour and is housed in the former samurai quarters of Himeji-jo.

I got to Hiroshima in the late afternoon after about an hour on the train. While waiting for my train in Himeji, a northbound 500 series Nozomi saw fit to rocket through the station, creating its own weather patterns in its wake. You have no idea. Not only are these things fast, they’re loud, too; the sneak up on Himeji station and then blast through at full speed — if you’re looking in the wrong direction, as I was, you miss their approach. Suddenly there’s this thunderclap, and a silver arrow goes flying across your field of vision, and is gone even before you realize it. My one sorrow about the Japan Rail Pass is that it isn’t valid on Nozomi services, so I don’t get to experience this from the inside out. Those 500 series trains look sweet.

My hotel is housed in a bare concrete building on the banks of the Kyobashi-gawa river, where it meets up with the Enko-gawa. I have a very nice view of both from my window. The hotel’s Web site describes it as having high-speed Internet in all rooms, which had me fired up. Upon arrival I searched high and low for an RJ45 jack and couldn’t find one. I was ready to be pissed, until hallie poked me and said, “Hey, I’ve found a wireless network: FLEX-4F. Do you want to connect?” Behold! The hotel has configured floor-by-floor WiFi.

Sweeeeet.

Things That Bug Me About Japan:

1. Garbage. You would not believe how much packaging you get with everything here. I bought some gyoza at Isetan the other day. The plastic tray was wrapped in paper, as you would wrap a Christmas present. The box was then put into a paper bag, which was sealed. The paper bag was then put into a plastic bag. I’m shocked the clerk didn’t put my hashi into their own little envelope (I guess the fact that they’re hermetically sealed kind of precludes that).
2. Everything talks to you. Everything. The escalator. The elevator. The ATM. The subway. The bus. The shinkansen. The truck backing up in the street. In theory, this is great. In practice, not so much. Why? Because you tune it out. Granted I’d never understand what it was saying anyway (though I’ve gotten to the point where I can pick out the important gist of an announcement; anything that sounds like, “suniwa blah blah blah” is warning you of an upcoming stop and if you want to get off, get ready), but the fact that it’s incessant and everywhere means I don’t notice anything. Frankly I wouldn’t be surprised to discover a talking toiler by the time I leave. (“Thank you for using me as a waste receptacle,” maybe.) At the same time, I wish I could speak Japanese so I could figure what the hell the escalator is telling me — it’s warning me about something, but what I don’t know. (“Abunai desu kara” == it’s dangerous. Great! Thanks! What’s dangerous?!)
3. If you smoke, Japan is the country for you. Since I don’t, it drives me bananas. My hotel in Tokyo was awful for this — the hallways, poorly ventilated, reeked of cigarette smoke. They were too warm, too, which really didn’t help matters at all.
4. Vertical space. It’s no surprise that contemporary Japan designs for small spaces, horizontally speaking, but what baffles me is the need to compress vertically, too. I’ve lost count of the number of doors I have nearly hit my head on; this morning, in the shower in my hotel in Himeji, I discovered I barely had room to work the shampoo through my hair. WTF?

Things I Will Miss About Japan

1. Neon and concrete. We really don’t have enough of this back home.
2. Austere aestheticism. My hotel in Hiroshima is sleek in that bare concrete and strong primary colors way that looks so good on film. Though small, my room has — get this — hardwood floors. You get this all over the place, just with varying degrees of modernity.
3. Ridiculously convenient public transport. Okay, maybe just in Tokyo.
4. Edible food at the Kwik-E-Mart. I’m not joking: I had a perfectly servicable donburi at the FamilyMart this evening (this is what happens when you stay out past the closing time of most restaurants). Try that at 7-11.

There’s probably more I will think up as time goes on, for both lists, but it’s like midnight and I want to go to bed.