Day 98--Crossing the International Date Line, Enroute to Hawaii

29 November (Sunday after our two Saturdays). 28°52’ N, 173°44’ E. Course: 107. Speed: 15 knots.

Though we don’t cross the international date line until this evening, sometime between 1800 and 1900 hours, the ship declared yesterday as our fall-back day, when we lose all the hours we’ve gained over the past 3+ months and are now behind the U.S. Early yesterday, we were 18 hours ahead of Chicago. Tomorrow, after yet another lost hour, we’ll be only 5 hours behind. One more hour to lose before we arrive in Honolulu. Most people on board are saying, “This ain’t the right direction to travel if you’re heading around the world.” Especially on this long, long leg across the Pacific, we’re all suffering a little boat-lag.

Moreover, the Pacific has been anything but pacific. We’ve been rocking and rolling since we sailed out into the ocean last Tuesday night. Most voyageurs have well-seasoned sea legs by now, so mal de mer hasn’t been much of a problem. But a moving house gets old, and it’s especially tough on tired joints. My right knee—the original equipment—has been aching since my long walk around Shanghai. Now, with the ship swaying constantly, both knees need to make quick adjustments as I walk down a hall or climb stairs. And the adjustments are involuntary, the kind we learn when we first start to walk and find ways to keep our balance. The ship sways right, I feel myself swaying with it, my right leg does what it’s supposed to do and locks slightly to keep me from falling, and a sharp pain shoots through the knee. Holding onto the rails that run throughout the ship helps. But only a little.

Most of us are looking forward very much to seeing Coronado Island off the bow.

I’m starting to make plans for my re-entry into the real, wonderfully boring world of suburban Chicago. I think some serious decompression time will be in order—lots of time sitting on my own couch, watching football and holiday specials on TV, and sleeping in a still bed. I’m planning a 3-day visit to Nevada immediately after arriving in San Diego. We’ll need a few hours to clear the ship and arrange shipment of boxes and bags. Then I fly to Vegas, arriving early evening for 3 days with daughters, son, and grandkids.

On the 18th, I fly from Las Vegas to Washington DC, where Haley will be preparing for her first concert with the Navy Band: their annual holiday concert in Constitution Hall. I’ll see her new digs just a few blocks from the National Mall and the Navy Yard, I expect to be treated to a free meal or two, and, of course, I’ll attend the concert Saturday night. I’m looking forward very much to watching Sailor (Musician 1st Class) Bangs play her flute with one of the great bands in the world.

Finally, Sunday night the 20th, I’ll head back to Chicago and Libertyville. Refuge! A home that doesn’t move.

But, once again, I’m ahead of myself. Back to Kobe and Hiroshima.

Kobe and Hiroshima

I woke at 0800 on Monday the 23rd to find us already tied tight to the dock in Kobe. The arrival and docking process has become so routine I don’t even try to get up to watch anymore.

Kobe’s arrival terminal wasn’t as impressive as the one in Yokohama: older, a few patches of rust running along the 3-story, 60s-style, white, glass-and aluminum building that ran the entire length of the 2,000-foot dock—long enough for two large cruise ships to tie up, though we were the only ones there at the moment.

Bob Chapel had left me a note before he departed the ship in Yokohama asking if I’d wait for him on Monday before heading for the train station to catch the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima. Maria was going to Kyoto, and Bob, true to form, had “seen enough temples.” At 8:30, Bob appeared at my cabin door, and by 9:15, we were on the subway to Shinkobe, the bullet train station serving Kobe.

We bought 2 reserved-seat tickets on the 10:22 departure—probably an unnecessary luxury, but we wanted to make sure we had seats. Open seating for the over-200-kilometer trip costs about $50 each way; a reserved seat costs another $45 or so. But the assurance of having a seat was worth the extra cost to us.

As expected, the train pulled into the station precisely on time, a very sleek, needle-nose, white streamliner that truly does look like something out of the future. The train was at least eight cars long, having started in Tokyo and running all the way to Fukuoka on the far western island of Kyushu. And a similar train passes through Kobe about every 20 to 30 minutes, all day long. Based on what we saw, load factors are not a problem on the trains. Our reserved-seat car was at least 2/3rds full, and the other cars looked the same. I imagine the non-reserved-seat cars were closer to full. Obviously, Japanese travelers prefer surface travel to air travel. The reasons are obvious.

The train pulled out of the station as the second hand swept through 10:22, and very soon, the Japanese countryside was passing by in a blur. Everthing I had heard about the bullet trains is true: they are spooky quiet, smooth as riding a BMW on a new interstate, and far more comfortable than even economy-plus seating on a United cross-country flight. They leave our so-called fast service on the East coast—Amtrak’s Accela—in the dust. And don’t even ask about Metra in Chicago. I took some video as we passed through the mountains and fields of western Honshu, and, as I look at the video today, I think, “Somehow I must have done something in the recording process to create this illusion of speed.” But I didn’t. The Shinkansen is just plain fast! We covered the 200+ kilometers—about 120 miles—in 70 minutes. That included 3 intermediate stops between Kobe and Hiroshima. Top speed was 180 kph. Why would anyone fly between cities with train service like this?
We pulled into Hiroshima station (the Japanese say “here-oh-shee-mah,” with no accents, not “here-ROH-shee-mah”) about 11:35am, found our way to the streetcar stop, and climbed aboard for the slow ride through downtown Hiroshima to Peace Park, the memorial to victims of the atomic bomb attack on August 5th, 1945. Hiroshima, as expected, looks like a city built in the late 40s, which, of course, is precisely the case, as it was completely destroyed when the bomb dropped. The day was perfect: clear skies, temperature in the low 60s F, exactly the kind of day August 5th had been.

We learned later that the Enola Gay crew had 3 potential targets that day. The decision to go to Hiroshima was made when the aircraft was about halfway from Wake to the Japanese mainland. The weather over Hiroshima that day was clear, little wind, just as it was on Monday. As we rode the streetcar, I commented to Bob that it was a day precisely like this one when people, riding on their way to work just as we were doing, suddenly saw the flash, wondered for a brief moment what that might have been, then felt for only an instant the heat and blast as they, their families, and their city were literally reduced to smoldering dust.

Bob and I got off the streetcar across from what they call the Peace Dome, the remaining shell and dome of what had been a government building during the war. It has since become the symbol of Hiroshima as it was one of the few buildings left standing after August 5th. It survived somewhat intact because it was almost directly below the point 600 meters above where the bomb exploded. The blast and heat went outward from the explosion point, leaving the building directly below only badly damaged.

We spent a few minutes walking around the dome before debating whether to go directly to the museum in the middle of the park across the river, or to go to lunch.
Lunch won. We walked into the city, a couple blocks away from the river, and found a local spot serving excellent noodle soup and teriyaki. Then we walked back to the river, crossed the bridge across one of the rivers that flow from downtown to the Inland Sea, and walked into Peace Park.

Peace Park is an island formed by a split in one of the several rivers that flow out to the sea from Hiroshima. It was selected as the location of memorials to the victims of the bombing because it connects to the rest of the city by what’s called the “T” bridge, a bridge that spans the main river just west of the park, with a perpendicular span connecting the bridge to the park. The intersection of the main span and connecting span form a “T,” and it was this prominent landmark that the Enola Gay had used as its primary aim point for the drop: point zero.

We walked through the park toward the museum, a long, modern building sitting on the eastern end of the park. In front of the museum, a couple hundred yards toward the “T” bridge, is what’s called the Peace Cenotaph, a hangar-shaped memorial to the victims. A group of middle-school-aged children—dressed very neatly in dark-blue shorts, skirts, and jackets, and each topped by a bright yellow cap—were visiting the museum and, as Bob and I passed, were listening to a very animated talk by a guide or teacher. A good photo op.

We then walked to the museum. There’s not much point in describing what’s in the museum. It documents the time leading up to August 5th, the moment of the attack, and, in gruesome detail, the aftermath, particularly the effect on people who had been near the bomb’s point zero. It includes replicas of letters from Einstein, Truman, Oppenheimer, Stillwell, Eisenhower, and other American leaders, some counseling restraint, others advising to use the weapon. It was interesting to see that people like Eisenhower and Stillwell advised strongly against dropping the bomb because, as General Stillwell said, “we’ll never be forgiven.” But, of course, the US did drop the bomb. The aftereffects were chilling, documented by shreds of burned, bloody clothing worn by children who had been near the blasts’ s center. All died within hours or days of the attack.

We spent about 2 hours in the museum, then left to walk through the park back toward the streetcar stop. The skies were still absolutely clear and blue, and the trees, as they had been in Yokohama and Tokyo, were at the peak of color. It was a strangely anachronistic scene compared to the grim, gray, relentless displays inside the museum.

After a brief stop in a department store so Bob could buy some gifts for his housesitters in Charlottesville, we took the streetcar back to Hiroshima station. We had time for a quick beer before heading to the train. Then we rode the 70 minutes back to Kobe.

Monday night, I joined Maria—who had returned from Kyoto about the same time we got back from Hiroshima—and Bob for dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse across Kobe Bay from where the MV Explorer was tied up. No taxis were waiting outside the terminal, so Bob suggested we start walking down the long ramp leading away from the terminal because, surely, we’d be able to find a taxi. About an hour and a couple of miles later, after several false starts down dead-end piers that looked like they led to the bright lights of the harbor area, we managed to flag down an available taxi for the remaining ½ mile to the restaurant. The eventual meal was OK. My knee was burning.

Tuesday morning, I stayed onboard to grade a few papers and catch up on some blogging and photo editing. Then, about 11am, I headed into Kobe for some last-minute foreign-port shopping—Christmas shopping—on our final day in a non-US port. Kobe is a rather non-descript city, though every bit as neat, clean, orderly, and quiet as I had found Tokyo, Yokohama, and Hiroshima. I managed to find everything I had been looking for—or didn’t know I was looking for—before heading back to the ship around 4pm.

We sailed out of Kobe Tuesday night at 2100, our final departure from a foreign port.