Hiroshima and what followed until Matt came

Well, what can I say, so much has happened since the last time I managed to post. I'll be brief and succint.... although in reality I've filled a couple of notebooks.

Hiroshima:
First I read an american book recounting the events, sickening, but not quite the same. When I get there the professor leading the tour tells me and Greg. If you were here at the station, you would be on fire. After you hear her, the survivor, you'll want to get the hell out of here. We walked the long way to the monument. Saw the many islands and canals of the beautiful city. The air was fresh. Saw the rebuilt Hiroshima castle. Heard the speech.
Water droplets fall from grey sky, manikens of shredded and dying children, shredded clothes on display. Lumpy juniper trees line the monument. To world peace perhaps, the price paid.
Life is a living hell for the survivor. Gotta make a better world. Peace.
Later at the youth hostel had quite a discussion about the atomic bomb with a couple of guys in the bath, even they had a diversity of opinions. Its clear it was a disaster and war is bad.
Trip to Miyajima, the sacred island in the clouds with a coupl of sprites. Chased, and was chased around by, deer. My fortune read only the best at the shrine. Magical.

The slow train back through steep mountain valleys with red roofed houses and the occasional thatched roof. Onomichi with its boddhisatvas carved into the rockfaces above the old town of crooked streets and wooden houses. Fukuyama, with a castle and some not so tasty fish cakes.
Okayama: with the black crow castle looming over the river in the sunset. And koruakuen one of the three most famous gardens in Japan, a vast and miniature world at the same time. Definitly in winter however. Hidden in a grove deep in the park me and Greg chow down on some kibi dango (soft brown simple mochi that the peach child himself, Momotaro used to make friends with the fox and wolf in order to subdue the demon) to the sound of birdsongs and bamboo trunks clinking together in the wind.
Wara wara. Laugh laugh. Its the name of a bar, it sounds like Walla Walla. So its funny. But who is laughing at or with who?

Later, after return days past...
Hitori de, (alone)
Cold cold spring. Wrote some bad haikus in Japanese as I sit beside and old style building with singed wooden paneling. Swaying lanterns. Tanuki,. Withered trees and blossoms. Mayou. Getting lost. Getting rained on, getting obsessive.

Saw Tanuki Ponpoko Heisei. Its about shapechanging little beasts called Tanuki. They are incredible. And the fact that things can shape change is incredible.