Hiroshima Day 1

(Back dated to 2 May 2009)

My first "hitori tabi" (solo trip)! I was both excited and nervous... Drove to Misawa Station and cheated by parking in the next door onsen parking lot... (More about that later ^^;; )

Then began my long day of train rides. I pretty much slept up to Tokyo, then looked over the translation for volume 4, chapter 19 of Hotaru no Hikari. Upon arriving in Hiroshima, I checked into my hotel and then headed out to the Peace Memorial Park and Museum.


























(Photos: Genbaku Dome; Flame of Peace; Peace Memorial Park from the Museum)

The museum was pretty crowded, so I actually went through it a lot faster than I thought I would. But I figured that was OK since I’d be back the next day first thing in the morning. After leaving the museum I wandered into the Memorial Hall. It was pretty empty, so I was able to go through at a leisurely pace and to spend some time reading memoirs from the bombing, etc. After that I wandered around the park.

After the park, I headed back towards the station to find a teppanyaki-style okonomiyaki restaurant recommended on Wiki travel called Sankanou. It's really close to the station (across the street from the Ekimae Green Hotel, next to the Ekinishikoka Bridge) and is a great place for people traveling alone or in pairs.

Unfortunately I got a bit turned around leaving the park, and what should’ve been a 20-30 minute walk turned into a 90 minute walk. I wasn’t walking around the entire time, though; I stopped at a Book-Off I came across on the way. I was pleased to find a couple of last volumes of various manga I’d been looking for.

Anyway, the long walk was worth it! The master is super friendly, and there was a Hiroshima Carp fan from Fukuoka about the same age as me there, too, so I had some good conversations. (I wish I'd had the guts to ask him to take a picture with me! He really reminded me of Anton in terms of facial features and friendliness--or maybe that's just because I was talking with him (Anton) about his mission work recently?) Being me, of course, I didn’t talk very much, but I enjoyed listening and I didn’t feel like a loner/outsider even though I couldn’t really participate in the highly baseball-centric discussions.

I learned a bunch of random things, like baseball stadiums have set seating sections for home and away fans. Also, that I could get a plastic bag from a JT booth at the Flower Festival, and if I returned it with some garbage in it, I could get something! One of the customers even gave me a toy banana and crab claw (made out of squishy, stress-ball material). I’m not 100% sure, but I think he was saying that he likes to get the things (from UFO catcher or some such machines?) even though he doesn’t particularly want the stuff.

Originally I’d planned to arrive at Sankanou around 7pm and be back at the hotel to watch Godhand Teru at 7:56, but since I didn’t find the place until about 7:30pm, my plans had to change. I actually ended up staying until about 10pm!! All in all, a successful first day!

Facebook Album Photos from Day 1:
Genbaku Dome
Peace Memorial Park Area
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
Other Day 1 Photos

Really wishing my Japanese was better...

As mentioned a couple of times previously, I'm currently watching a Japanese medical drama called "Godhand Teru" on TV. The first two episodes I watched, I thought "Well, I'll just keep watching because I like Hiraoka Yuta" (the lead actor).

This week's episode (episode 3), though, was pretty interesting, and it really made me wish my Japanese and/or medical knowledge was better.

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Not that I think anyone reading this is likely to care, but just to be safe...

**SPOILER WARNING**

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So yeah, the central plot of this week's episode was that the ace pitcher from the last Koshien tournament (the BIGGEST deal in Japanese high school baseball, and followed widely across the country) had fibrosarcoma in his right thumb and the doctor in charge of his case--a highly skilled young surgeon completely antagonistic towards Teru and his bumbling--advised that the only way to deal with it was to amputate his thumb. Of course, doing so would also put an end to his dreams of a future in baseball.

Teru wanted to find a way to deal with the tumor that would allow the patient to continue playing baseball. Despite much research and agonizing, the scheduled surgery date came and it seemed like there was no other way but to amputate when Teru's desire to protect the boy's dreams for the future enabled him to enter "god hand" (i.e. genius surgeon) mode and he came up with autotransplantation as a solution...

And that's where I couldn't really follow the specifics. In the closing scenes, they showed the boy with his right thumb sewn into his side and they explained that it was being naturally healed inside his body, but I can't figure out how it works, specifically. I mean, I get the general idea (from the show and from a cursory web search on "autotransplantation"), but it bugs me that I can't get a logical picture of the theory/process in my head.

Any med people who can help me out with this?

[Edit May 27, '09: Watched the fansub and learned that what happened was they cut open his thumb and extracted all the affected cells. Only by making sure they removed every bit of tumorous flesh could they be sure it wouldn't spread to other parts of his body. While they were removing the tumorous cells, they discovered it had spread to his tendon. So that's when Teru had to go into "god hand" mode (again) to cut away only the tumorous parts (very difficult) from the tendon. Then they sewed his thumb into his abdomen because there are a lot of fat and blood vessels to aid self-healing--that's the autotransplantation, transferring fat tissue from his abdomen to his thumb.]

Another fast update

Still haven't had time to don't feel like writing a real post yet. But I do have a bunch of pictures I've uploaded to Facebook!

Tokyo in Transit
Anaheim Days 1-2
Anaheim Day 3, LAX
Hanami
Towada Yosakoi Part I
Towada Yosakoi Part II

Other than that, the quick update on my life is:
- work is busy
- my apartment is a disaster zone (again/still)
- I enjoyed a BBQ in Chuo Koen (even though it was windy and rather cold) with the Towada, Shich, and Noheji ALTs, plus a few rounds of Mafia at Bryan's place on Thursday (April 23)
- I'm going to Hiroshima for Golden Week (May 2-5)
- the Kirita Sports Festival is May 17th
- I'm going to Sai Mura (FINALLY) on the weekend of May 23
- I recently finished watching the Tantei Gakuen Q (Detective Academy Q) anime--I enjoyed it, but the live action drama was better
- Along with Godhand Teru (see my previous post) on TV, I'm also currently watching Hotaru no Hikari on DVD; unfortunately I've only been able to get discs 1 and 2 from Tsutaya so far--seems like discs 3 & 4 are perpetually out... (HnH also happens to be the series I'm proof reading scanlations for at J-SiS.)
- Like many others, I changed to summer tires a couple of weeks ago and moved all the winter stuff (winter wipers, snow scraper, shovel) out of the car and thus was woefully unprepared for driving home through the SNOW after watching the Yosakoi Festival










And, on a completely random note, here's a little something I bought towards the end of February. Isn't he cute? Any suggestions for a name?

Godhand Teru

Because it's on my mind, a quick post!

I was randomly browsing through the manga at Tsutaya last Saturday when I noticed a series called Godhand Teru. It was on display because a new TV drama for the series was airing on TBS. Looking at the picture for the drama, I saw that Hiroaka Yuta (not the most famous actor, but I've liked him since watching him in "Swing Girls") would be playing the lead!!

Unfortunately I had just missed the first episode by a couple of hours (it aired just before 8pm, I was at Tsutaya a between 9 and 10pm), but I ended up staying home tonight and catching the second episode!

Admittedly the story is hardly believable--a young boy whose surgeon father died in a car accident after saving his life decides to become a surgeon but is clumsy and only manages to unleash his true capabilities ("god hands") when his patients' lives are in danger--but I'm going to try to follow it and see if it grows on me.

At least I'm finally getting my money's worth out of the bi-monthly fees I pay to NHK! (Before, I only watched TV to check the weather forecast!)