# Other Places Around The World > Asia, South Pacific & Australia >  >  Hiroshima

## katva

My sister is in Japan right now, attending and speaking at a science event.  She sent a super quick report!  I would love to go sometime...

"  I walked around the memorial park in Hiroshima - wow.  Very moving, very fresh in peoples' minds.  Very neat city though - SO MANY PEOPLE.  We walked through the Tokyo train station yesterday (we took the bullet train - Shinkansen - to Hiroshima!) - I did not know there existed so many people on this planet.  Tokyo is HUGE.  It probably took two hours to pass through Tokyo on the high speed train.  Crazy!!"

Here are a few of her pics:

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## JEK

We were there in 2008. For me this museum piece was the most moving -- a wristwatch stopped at 8:16 August 6, 1945.

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## amyb

John-This is one picture that is worth a thousand words-very powerful for me.

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## katva

Yes, what a powerful image. I hope my sister has more time to explore. She has been so excited about this trip for a long time.  But, she's a major workaholic. 
I spent 6 weeks in Japan when I was just 5 years old--- I have some foggy but beautiful memories.

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## MIke R

is this the sister I met on the Cape?

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## katva

Yep---she's a regular science-nerd- globe -trotter.  :) I Can't count the number of continents and countries she's been on/in in the last 10-15 years.  She travels non-stop.   When she's home, her husband goes on similar trips for his research.  Wears me out just thinking about it!
She is really loving it there.  Has been learning the art of bowing.

Friend her on FB!

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## MIke R

yeah she seemed like a hot s**t.....good for her

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## MIke R

> She travels non-stop.   When she's home, her husband goes on similar trips for his research.  Wears me out just thinking about it!




formula for a good long lasting marriage....Wendi and I are on a diluted version of that   :Big Grin:   :Big Grin:   :crazy:

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## katva

....and, as an aside, the reason she took the photo of the Starbucks, is that our other sister (the one who passed away) worked for Starbucks....and Starbucks was VERY good to her and her memory.  We always take photos of Starbucks when we travel.  Some might find it tacky and too American in a foreign land, but it has a very special meaning to us  :)

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## katva

> yeah she seemed like a hot s**t.....good for her



She is, in her field, which I can't pronounce, let alone explain  :Big Grin:

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## Jeanette

If you truly want to go to Japan, speak to Dennis. He still has family there. He also had family that lost everything because they were forced into American interment camps.

What amazes me most about his family is they freely chose to move to a country that dropped two nuclear bombs on their homeland while they still lived there. I am not so sure I could do that.

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## LindaP

Kathy,
My brother and a colleague just published a book at the end of last year, called :The Half Life of History  (by Mark Klett and William Fox).  It is about Hiroshima; but also about the Enola Gay and the hanger at the Wendover Airforce Base. My brother took the photos,  very interesting.
As Fox writes : "The  Half Life of History is not about whether or not we should have used the atomic bomb in WW II, nor is it an attempt to redress any perceived imbalance in history. The reason we created this project was our dismay and bafflement over the discontinuity between past, present, and future."

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## katva

Very interesting, Linda!  I may pick this up for my vacation reading.  

My vague memories of being there as a very young child are of beautiful gardens, the zoo in Tokyo, and the beautiful Japanese "nanny" we had---there is a word for these ladies who took care of children but I don't recall what it is (on crosswords frequently!).  I have seen the snapshots of us---and one of my very favorite photos is of my Mom in a fur coat (it was winter, snowy and icy), pumps and her fashionable cat-eye glasses, hopping from one stone to another in a garden.  We also took a train, and I rememeber that---and I remember the plane ride!  This was when business men and their families got to go first class, and the stewerdesses (Japanese) brought us kids a huge lego set to play with on our table!  

My oldest sister married a man who was Japanese, and his sister and mother came over from Japan to live near us in LA.  They loved the US.  My nephew (their son) maintains close ties to his Japanese relatives.  I really would love to see the country---and climbing/hiking Mt. Fuji is on my list!

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## LindaP

That is cool that you lived there for a while, Kathy......and very descriptive memories!!!  My brother lived there for a year on Kyoto, in 1995, and his daughter at the time, was 2 yrs old with  white blonde hair.......he said all the Japanese people wanted to touch her hair because it was so blonde; unusual for them !!!!!!

PS I hope your son's finger is ok!

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## katva

Well, I wouldn't call 6 weeks living there, but it was a long trip!  My hair was very much blonde when I was young, and with blue eyes, I hear I caused a lot of stir!  This was in the late 60's.

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