Day 5:

Today I rose early (4:30 AM) with three other and went to the Tokyo Fish Market, also known as the Tsukiji market in Japan. The market is located on the bay and there are thousands of vendors packed into a small area. Visitors have to be very careful to watch where they are going, as speeding forklifts, hand drawn carts, and sharp machetes are at every turn. At the market there is every type of sea animal you could imagine, plus thousands more you can’t. At 5:30 we saw the tuna auction. Hundreds of large tunas that have been caught and quick-frozen are laid out on the floor of a large room. The buyers walk around investigating the meat of the tuna near the tail, where a slice has been cut to expose the meat. Buyers rub and smell and sometimes even taste the meat in effort to find the best. The highest quality has a good color and lots of fat. The largest of the fish will sell for up to $20,000 each.

Check out the market at:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/galleries/tokyo/

http://www.tsukiji-market.or.jp/tukiji_e.htm

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3iAU9vIaAV4

Upon return from the fish market I had a traditional Japanese breakfast. It consisted of rice, cooked salmon, vegetables with lotus root, and miso soup (made from soy bean paste, seaweed, and tofu).

After breakfast I attended a seminar entitled “Peace Education.” There were three presenters who spoke and then took questions. Tomoke Yanage, a second generation atomic bomb survivor whose dad was one mile from ground zero, spoke first. Half of the people at one mile from ground zero died instantly. Many of the other half had health problems for the remainder of their lives and were shunned because they were “contaminated.” Koji Ikeda, a 90-year-old man that survived the Hiroshima bomb. When the bomb hit, his wife was outside and her face and body were severely burned. Ikeda described what he saw as “a new sun shone over Hiroshima that burned everybody.” Migiwas Ishitani spoke on behalf of her father, a survivor of the Nagasaki bomb, who passed away 9 years ago. She began by saying “On behalf of my father I would like to sincerely apologize to you for anything the Japanese may have done during the war.” This apology was something her father always did before speaking with Americans about the war. After the war was over, her father did everything he could to promote peace.

Today there are many opinions about whether or not the atomic bombs should have been dropped. After listening to these people speak and talking to other Japanese, I have come to an understanding that this debate is no longer important. Preventing it from happening again is. Japan is a country of people who have participated in and received the atrocities of war. This has taught a great lesson of the importance of peace. After lunch we experienced another form of Japanese theater called Kabuki. Kabuki includes dancing, music, and song.

Dinner was tempura, which is battered and deep-fried vegetables and meat.

After dinner a group of us hopped on a train and headed out to a Japanese Major League baseball game. We were going to see the Hanshin Tigers vs. the Seibu Lions at the Lions’ home field. Japanese baseball is the same as our baseball as far as the game goes, but very different as far as the crowd goes. We could hear the “thump, thump, thump” of the drums inside the stadium when we got off the train. At the entrance, Tigers fans went to the right, and Lions fans to the left. The stadium was equally divided between the two. The fans were very polite to each other. When one team was at bat, its fans would cheer and the opposing team’s fans would be quiet. There were individual cheers for each team and even each player. The outfield section was full of the most devoted fans. In this section the drum players would lead the entire stadium in cheering their team on. The possibility of hearing the crack of the bat was non-existent. It was constant noise. The Lions pulled out a close one, hitting in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth.

Day 6: Free Day!

Today was the one day we could do whatever we wanted. I chose to go down to Kamakura, a surfing town about an hour south of Tokyo where I walked the beach, saw Mt. Fuji in the distance, and visited several old shrines. Kamakura is well known for its giant Buddha sculpture. I left around noon so I could make it back to Tokyo in time to go to some art museums. I went to the Tokyo National Museum and the Tokyo Museum of Western Art.