Anna Ekmekci, Lilian Ivlev, David Szabo-Dery
Day 3 (1/29):
Our day began well with an early breakfast at the hotel (and thankfully, a later-than-usual wake-up time after last night’s delay in arriving at the hotel). Though some of us made trips to local convenience stores, we ate a traditional Japanese breakfast that consisted of savory fish, deliciously salty miso, a cube of egg, as well as other particularly Japanese delicacies. For one, the fermented soybeans proved to be an acquired taste for most of us! Overall, though, the hotel’s food was pretty good, and we made our way, then, to Kokutaiji High School afterward.
At Kokutaiji, we started off our day by meeting the school’s principal, Mr. Morita, along with other staff and school alumni who opened our visit with presentations about the school and its history. We then made our way to our first class, calligraphy. Japanese students instructed us in painting kanji characters using traditional Japanese brushes and ink. We also got to spell our names in Japanese as well! I personally found calligraphy to be a bit too precise for me, but our renditions all turned out almost like the correct Japanese calligraphy (albeit a bit clumsier). In the end, we were able to bring our calligraphy home as a souvenir from our time at Kokutaiji.
After leaving calligraphy, we then met our student buddies outside, who then took us to their classes. We were able to spend the next couple of hours experiencing Japanese school life (with some of us even taking math exams!) until it came time to have lunch. For lunch, we were served bento boxes, and we got to eat with and get to know our Japanese friends.
We left lunch to return to our original meeting room, and then walked to the Hiroshima peace memorial. Solemnly, we made our way through the bombing victims’s cenotaph, the children’s monument, before stopping to see Hiroshima’s famous Genbaku Dome. Our visit to the memorial was followed by a trip to the Hiroshima peace memorial museum. We were provided with an eye-opening look into the impacts of the bomb, including stories of survivors and images of the grisly aftermath.
We then returned to Kokutaiji High School for the final two events of the day. Firstly, we gathered in the school’s seminar building for a discussion about peace, nuclear war, and a book we read prior to our trip on the topic of Hiroshima’s bombing. Japanese and American students offered an array of interesting perspectives on how the world should go about maintaining peace, and we were able to engage in over an hour of productive discussion regarding pressing global issues.
After the peace talks, we traveled downstairs to attend a welcome party. We were able to once again enjoy the company of our Japanese buddy students today, while also being treated to warm speeches from school faculty, performances by Japanese students, and an array of tasty Japanese fast food.
By nightfall, we bid farewell to our Japanese friends, but before we could return to the hotel, many of us decided to stop again at the nearby convenience stores. A group of us even traversed blocks of convenience stores in search of Pokemon cards (which we thankfully found after checking a handful of shops!). We finally returned to the hotel to enjoy a longer night of sleep, especially after yesterday’s complications.
