Osaka to Takamatsu to Hiroshima - March 31, 2024
Much has happened since my last post. Apologies for the hiatus but we had a whirlwind couple of days on board and then for the last four days I have been entombed in my berth with a dry cough, chills and fever and since we are on a French boat, la grippe with a temperature of 101F. This morning I managed to keep down some toast and a latte, my first food in three days.
In the course of lying flat for the last couple of days I kept thinking that I should get up and put together a post but my head was so unclear and buzzy that I don’t think it would have made much sense. However I woke up this morning with a clear head and a slight tingling of appetite so I think things are on the turn.
The ship’s doctor, whose English matches my French, for emergency use only, has been terrific and I grudgingly think that the improvement began when she convinced me to start a course of antibiotics which I had been resisting since I did not think it would be of much use against a virus. Whether it was the antibiotic or the fact that the infection had run its course is moot but I’m happy with the outcome.
So let me take you back over the last week.
We left our airport capsule hotel the day after our flight from Tokyo, picked up by an Abercrombie & Kent driver and whisked away to the Ritz Carlton in downtown Osaka. The contrast could not have been more stark and needless to say, a very hot shower and a very big and comfortable bed set the world right again.
We quickly connected with C&E and joined them for dinner. E was undergoing severe stress during dinner, her son and his family live in Singapore, and her 10 year old granddaughter who was born with a congenital heart problem was being operated on as we dined. Her granddaughter’s condition would have had to have been dealt with at some point and the decision was taken to do it while she was still young enough to recover quickly. There are only a couple of surgeons in the world who have experience dealing with her specific problem and fortunately one was in Toronto and one was in Singapore, so the family did have options but they chose to have it done in Singapore since it took away the added stress of travelling before and after the operation. As we were having dinner E’s granddaughter had already been in the operating theatre for over 6 hours and we finally heard the good news from E later that night that after 11 hours the operation was complete, a success and she was in recovery. Enormous relief all round and it did feel like an auspicious start to our journey.
Bonsai sculpture in silver
The following day we boarded the ship and set out for our first stop, Takamatsu, the gateway to Shikoku Island one of the larger islands at the southern end of Japan. We docked the following morning and I spent the day visiting bonsai growers in the area. Over 90% of Japan’s and the world’s Japanese bonsai exports are produced in this little town of 400,00 inhabitants. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but with the foreknowledge of the town’s bonsai production I had expect something on an industrial scale but the reality was entirely different. The producers are all family-owned and managed and the production is entirely hand-done. The trees are started from seed planted in small family lots, the size of a house lot scattered around the area. Each family has several lots in various locations and each lot had trees at various stages in their growth cycle. They are pruned every fall and are dug up by hand every five years to have their roots trimmed to keep them small and re-planted or, depending on their size, potted. When they are potted they are brought to the work area of the family home where they are maintained until they are sold or exported. Many of the trees that I saw were between 60 and 100 years old and some were National Treasures and cannot be sold. Stunning, if you’re a fan.
One other thing caught my eye as we visited a number of bonsai grower’s homes. The potted trees are displayed on wooden racks at waist height in outdoor spaces adjoining the growers’ homes and they are invariably displayed with large glazed pottery pots under the racks where the plants are kept. These pots are busy with colourful koi, the size of large goldfish. I wondered if this was done with a sly sense of Japanese irony or was it an uncomplicated desire to show off fish and trees, which if left to their own devices, would both be considerably larger, grosser and less appealing than their miniaturized versions.
Japanese bride posing for wedding photograph in park
In case you were not aware, the translation of bonsai is a plant in a pot, so by definition the term does not necessarily mean a very small tree but one in a pot. This latter point explains why V did not join me but went off on another excursion. She claims that she can hear the thin, reedy screams of pain of the plants whose roots are aggressively pruned and then wired in place in their pots. Just to put this in context, V does enjoy a rare steak when it’s on offer.
Epicentre of the Hiroshima blast. Only building that was left standing in a 1.5k radius.
We left Takamatsu in the evening and sailed overnight to Hiroshima where we spent Easter, a truly harrowing morning. I won’t try and talk you through my experience, it contained many conflicting layers of meaning and context and it will take me a very long time to work my way through it. Suffice it to say that the most overpowering feeling that I was left with was the sheer futility of everything I saw. The awareness that it has taken an enormous amount of national introspection, not by any means complete, to use the experience as a mirror and come to terms with what is seen. But also the determination to turn the experience to positive ends, to dedicate the space, psychic and physical, to peace and forgiveness. And the final futility, the knowledge that if world leaders, you pick them, were brought there and saw everything on display and understood the purpose of the site, that it would not change their behaviour one iota.
Memorial arch to the Hiroshima dead looking through the arch to the eternal flame and on to the only remaining building from the blast.
On that note I leave you.
More to come!
