Patrick James Dunn Terrific picture indeed! No wonder Ayn always claimed that you were adopted! George could certainly have been your father!
Hi Patrick
Lovely to hear all your news - you certainly get around you lucky bugger!
June
left on Sunday, I think, so should be nicely installed in Hotel Dunn by
now. Thank you very much for offering her accommodation - she has your
single malt, by the way!
Had a party in my garden for Lisa's birthday last
Saturday. The weather had been so awful that we cancelled the band and
told all my friends that party postponed until good weather. All Lisa's
friends came (about 40!) and thank God it stayed dry albeit rather
chilly. I woke with a cold so decided the only way to get through the
day was to crack open the bubbly at 1pm when Carol arrived to help out!
BBQ started at 2.30pm and the last people left at midnight - we had
completely used up all the food and most of the booze. Max burnt his
arm on the bbq so had to be taken to Barnet General and Shebana's new
man managed to consume bottles of absinthe, JD and gin and stayed
upright!
When I re-arrange my party, I will do vats of chilli and rice as barbie's are too difficult to maintain for large numbers.
Will send you some piccies when I download them.
Take care and hope to see you soon. Penelope x
Annual Care Conference for Anne
Hi Patrick and Corinne:
Good to hear the ins and outs of your Japan adventures... especially loved your account of a quaint anniversary dinner spent observing local customs among the natives!
I imagine you are nearly home or actually home by now, and hope you find everything in order - all traces of wild celebrations erased from your abode, cat in one piece, etc. I wonder how Annie is? Given that you didn't mention her, I assume that she has recovered from her turn, or at least is holding her own - glad for your sake.
I have had a quiet weekend of pruning the shrubberies at Old Oak, with another one to come, in anticipation of a joint 60th birthday party here at the start of June for friends Ferne and Frank - our weather has been quite sunny in the daytimes, so hoping to make use of the deck, spa, etc.
My bookclub this week dispatched Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff - surprisingly it was quite popular with my highly choosy club buddies, and we had lots of fun nominating modern day Cleopatra equivalents over glasses of red in the back room of the Court House hotel in North Melbourne.
Steve is a free agent as of today, and hopeful of soon sorting out finer details of his contractual arrangements for the balance of 2012, meanwhile doing good works for his brothers on their various properties. He's doing regular 2 - 3 hour walks / hikes to prepare for outrunning the bears in the Rocky Mtn foothills. Love and cheers from Kathleen and Steve
Greetings from Kyoto!
Tuesday, May 22nd:
Up at 6:30am to have a shower and then a cup of java. My Starbucks sticks are dwindling so I'll need to look for more today. Cora Lee was awake, but not up, when I emerged from the shower. She had tea and we ate the oranges we'd bought yesterday, preferring to have but a light breakfast before heading for the nationally designated historical site, Dejima, site of the former Dutch Factory. This "window to the West during Japan's period of National Isolation played a vital role in the modernization of Japan." We only had about a ten minute walk to visit the reconstructed site so were buying our tickets, (¥500 each), at just after 10:00am. "Built in 1636 to isolate Europeans and prevent the spread of Christianity, Dejima was a tiny island, (formed on land reclaimed from Nagasaki Harbour), that served as Japan's only gateway to Europe for more than 200 years."
Reconstruction work started in 1996 and to date, ten of twenty-five buildings have been completed, to their early 19th century state. It really is an impressive and fascinating museum. We were both reminded of our experience at the Fortress of Louisbourg in Cape Breton. Latter is far larger, of course, but Dejima is similarly fascinating. Some of the buildings, (Chief Factor's Residence, Japanese Officials' Office, First Ship Captain's Quarters, for example), are furnished as they would have been while others, (Old Stone Warehouse, No.1 and 2 Warehouse, and others), house exhibits, of one sort or another, (tools, pottery and ceramics shards, broken clay pipes, bones of animals raised for food, weapons, and the like), as well as examples of medical and scientific equipment that was either used by early practitioners or developed as a result of teaching and the transfer of knowledge.
Of particular interest, a number exhibits of reproductions of historical paintings and photographs showed how these records were used in the reconstruction process itself, to determine building details, construction techniques, even the width of the roadways. In fact, archaeological excavation work is on-going and we witnessed about ten, white boiler-suited individuals working on the exposed stone foundations for six planned reconstructions, one man atop a step ladder taking photographs of an exposed section of one of the digs close to a public walkway.
We spent about two hours there, (and certainly could have spent longer as the detailed exhibits warranted close inspection), along with hordes of school groups. However, the layout is such that it can absorb many, many tourists and the experience is not diminished. A short, 10-15 minute film provides a valuable overview of daily, political and business life, from the point of view of the local Japanese translators, critical figures, as one might imagine, employed to facilitate business transactions, to translate everything from ships' manifests to personal letters. A number of the elite translators were responsible for the publication of many of the key medical and scientific works brought to Japan by the Dutch and other Europeans. Conversely, reports about Japan, its flora and fauna, and examples of its culture and fine arts, flowed in the opposite direction. A simply remarkable glimpse at a community where two cultures literally collided.
It was close to 12:30pm when we walked back towards out hotel and decided, en route, to have lunch back in Chinatown. Settled on a restaurant not far from where we'd eaten the night before. Surrounding streets were filled with troupes of school children, searching for places to eat themselves. Place we settled upon was similarly awash with uniformed middle-schoolers and their teachers but everything was very orderly as we've come to expect, having seen many such field trips at most of the museums and other points of interest we've visited so far.
Meal was truly delicious, My selection consisted of a huge bowl of rice topped with vegetables, with a large plate of rice noodles with vegetables and another plate of braised chicken, for Cora Lee. I used the small bowl of rice which came with the chicken dish to sop up the considerable amount of remaining, ever so tasty sauce, from Coriandre's vegetable platter. While waiting for our food, which didn't take but five minutes to arrive, we enjoyed watching the students at the surrounding tables. Restaurant had a second floor and Cora Lee could see more classes being sent upstairs as all of the tables on the first floor were filled.
Paid our bill, well satisfied with both the excellent fare and the reasonable price, (£2,600=$32.50), and a few minutes later we were on the Blue Line, #1, taking the tram to Stop # 19, Maysuyama-Machi, where we visited the Atomic Bomb Hypocenter, a large open space with a sand surface, surrounded by a dense border of mature trees, where we found a number of different memorials to the victims of the blast, some laden with hundreds and hundreds of colourful strings of paper cranes. One memorial was a wall remnant from Urakami Cathedral, (the grandest church in East Asia at the time), located about 600 meters northeast of the hypocenter. The explosion destroyed the cathedral and a portion of the southern wall was brought here when the new cathedral was rebuilt in 1958.
Close-bye, down a series of steps, an original portion of the ground in the hypocenter area is preserved and displayed behind large plate glass viewing windows. AS one could imagine, ground level was strewn with huge amounts of debris from destroyed buildings, scorched earth, melted glass and other material. A difficult sight to witness and we had not even started on our journey into the hellish nightmare, made all to real, by the dropping of the plutonium bomb, (nicknamed "Fatman"), by the American B29 "Bockscar", detonating about 500 metres above the site at 11:02 am, August 9th, 1945, causing approximately 150,000 deaths or injuries.
From the Hypocenter we walked up a slight hill to enter the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, opened in April 1996, one of the 50th anniversary projects for the bombing. Once again, the entrance was crowded with orderly groups of school children, in neat formation, waiting patiently for their turn to visit the exhibits. Must say, the horrific and often grisly nature of the subject matter aside, the museum does quite a remarkable job of detailing the historical development of Nagasaki, the modern military history of Japan, focusing on the events leading to WW II and operations and campaigns in the Pacific Theatre, with an emphasis on civilian and military life in Nagasaki, after the declaration of war and up until the time the bomb was dropped.
As one moves through the museum one passes exhibits of photographs and large scale models of Nagasaki prior to the bombing; through the ruins of the atomic wasteland, the state of the city immediately after the detonation; political events leading up to the decision, on the part of the Allies, to use the bomb against Japan; a life-size model of "Fatman"; the twisted water tank from Keiho Middle School, about 800 meters away from the hypocenter; a schoolgirl's lunchbox, all that remained of Satoko Tsusumi, (14 years old), identified by the name and class number written on the bottom of the small metal container, the uneaten rice within, charred by the heat of the fires started after the bombing; the silhouette of an air-raid lookout, and his ladder, who came down from the roof of the Nagasaki Fortress Headquarters, exposed to the flash, about 4.4 kilometers south of the hypocenter. The tar covering the wall exposed directly to the flash burned and disappeared but that in the victim's shadow remained. A literal atomic photograph.
Countless other examples abound, (bones of a human hand stuck in a clump of glass that melted, scorched clothing worn by exposed workers, a helmet with remains of a skull), but one of the most poignant is a wall clock, found in a house about 800m from the hypocenter, shattered by the blast, its hands stopped at 11:02 am, the moment of the explosion. Time, at this instant, literally stopped for the inhabitants of Nagasaki and by extension, for the rest of humankind.
Following exhibits record rescue and relief activity, testimonies of survivors and then those which detail modern nuclear weapons and the victims of nuclear tests and accidents. The last section, From Nagaski to the World, makes a powerful plea for a world free of nuclear weapons. Obviously, a very, very difficult experience but one that is so terribly important to recognize. The horror of war cuts across time and space. Both the immediate and lasting devastation which the atomic bombs unleashed on Japan took cruelty took unparalleled levels.
Somewhat mentally dazed and slightly disoriented by the unthinkable carnage, wrought, by and large, on civilians, we decided we needed some respite from all the death and destruction so we made our way to back to the nearest tram station where we caught the Red Line, # 3, to Kokaido-Mae, Stop # 45, near Nagasaki City Auditorium, to tranfer to the Green Line, # 5, Stop # 38, to ride it all the way to Ouratenshudo Shita, Stop # 50, where we wanted to visit Glover Garden. Quite a hike, up some fairly narrow, tourist shop lined streets, a series of wide stone stairs and four escalators, (two of them very long), later we reached our goal. In 1863, Thomas Blake Glover, a Scot, built a house on the hill in Minami-Yamate. One is afforded a magnificent view of much of Nagasaki and its working harbour. (By chance we chatted with a young American, working on the Korean cruise ship docked there, while on the tram. He plays in one of the bands aboard and I was reminded of our brief encounter with a Canadian, from Whiterock, on our river cruise in Brisbane, who played in the rock band on the cruise ship docked near the last stop on our outing.) Among many other business ventures, he founded, together with Robert Neill Walker, (He was another influential businessman in the world of the the the Nagasaki foreign settlement, a cold drink pioneer, naming two of his beverages "Banzai Cider" and "Banzai Lemonade". William Alt, from Britain, established the Alt Tradiing Company and in partnership with Nagasaki businessman, Kei Oura, he bought up and exported tea from all around Kyushu, introducing the world to Japanese tea. Fredrick Ringer, also from Britain, was involved in a wide range of activities, including the construction of Nagasaki waterworks, milling and electric power generation.) the Japan Brewery Company, the predecessor of the current Kirin Brewery Company.
His son, Tomisaburo Kuraba, born to Glover's Japanese wife,Tsuru, contributed greatly to the promotion of the fisheries industry in Japan and created a social group for foreigners, the Naigai Club, and subsequently established the Unzen Golf Course, Japan's first public course. Glover was closely connected to Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of Mitsubishi, and after his death, his younger brother, Yanosuke, the second president of the company, invited Glover into Mitsubishi as a consultant.
While the Glover, Walker and Alt residences were built on different sites of this hillside, other buildings, important to Nagasaki's history and culture have been relocated here:
the Mitsubishi No. 2 Dock House; the Jiyu-Tei Restaurant, Japan's first Western-style eating establishment; the Nagasaki District Court President's Official Residence and the Steele Memorial School, a mission school built in 1887. Numerous statues, historical stone markers and fish ponds dot the lovely, manicured grounds. Of particular interest, to me at least, were the statues of Puccini and Tamaki Miura who became world-famous for her role as Madame Butterfly, set in Nagasaki, of course. Some of the costumes she wore and props she used are also on display.
Just before 6:00pm a guard came by to usher me out as the gardens close at 6:00pm on the dot. Coriandre and I had gone in different directions about thirty minutes before as she wanted to ride the escalators down. Her foot was sore after almost six or seven hours of sightseeing. I wanted to follow the lovely paved paths that wound around the edge of the property so I descended that way and we met at the entrance. Short stroll back to Stop # 50, riding as far as Stop # 31, Tsuki-Machi, close to the entrance to Chinatown. After we alighted we went into a grocery store not far from our hotel and bought more picnic and breakfast fixings for next morning and our trip to Hiroshima. By the time we were actually back in our room, it was after 7:00pm, a full, full day. We both plopped down on the bed and put our feet up, watching a bit of BBC World News. Around 8:15pm we wondered if we really wanted to go out for dinner, both of us still feeling contentedly full form our delicious lunch. We decided we were happy to stay in, and munched on some cheese and crackers around 9:00pm, after we'd both showered and changed into our kimonos.
I caught up on email and the Infernal Diaries while Cora Lee read and watched TV. By 11:00pm Cora Lee was sound asleep and I was reasonably pleased with my daily entry so I brushed and flossed and read a few chapters of Cold Granite before setting the alarm for 6:15am. I wanted to be up early enough to finish working on the last entry and then wake Cora Lee up, with a cup of tea, to be ready, without rushing for our 9:57am departure for Hiroshima. We had a ten or fifteen minute tram ride to get to the station and I still needed to find an ATM which accepted my RBC debit card and was hoping there would be one near the terminal. Fell asleep, troubling images from the hypocenter flickering at the corners of my mind.
To be continued...
Very best wishes,
Robert.
Annual Care Conference for Anne
Dear Patrick
Having heard your voxbox message I gather there is not much chance that we will see you next week. But here is the invite:
Please be advised that the next annual Care
Conference for Anne will take place on Wednesday May-30-2012 at 10:30 AM
in the Broadway Lodge’ Conference Room on the main floor and you are
very welcome.
If you are not able to participate you are welcome
to appoint a designate, or call me in advance with concerns you would
like to have taken to the table.
Taking Anne’s state of mind into consideration it will probably just cause unnecessary anxiety and confusion to be invited.
At the Care Conference that is scheduled to last a
maximum of 30 minutes we have our house physician Dr. Peter Grantham
plus the in-house staff members that deal with Anne:
Les Borowy - RN Team Leader on 3rd floor where Anne lives
Chaplain Anne Scarrow
Les Borowy - RN Team Leader on 3rd floor where Anne lives
Chaplain Anne Scarrow
Dietician Jill Vanderlinden
Fe Hernando - the Activity Worker assigned to 3rd floor
Myself, Paul Henrik Borup-Jørgensen, Social Care Worker and Master of Ceremonies for the event.
You may also see Famella Altejos - Director of Care and we may have our Dental Hygienist Leeann Donelly at the table too,
We will go over the events since Anne’s last care
conference, June 1, 2011, and we hope you will take active part with
questions, comments, and suggestions.
We will also make a call about the Care Conference.
Yours Truly, Paul Henrik
Paul Henrik Borup-Jørgensen
Social Care Worker
Broadway Pentecostal Lodge
Catching a brass ring
Photo: Audrey Lawson
Confirmation of: DAVID COFFARO WINE ORDER
Hello Patrick, great to hear from you and thanks for submitting a new
order for 2012 futures in response to our recent offer. Sorry I haven't
communicated with you recently. Life's been getting in the way and going
by too quickly!
This will confirm that $400 was processed to your charge card account on
5/20/12 to confirm the order which you've requested. Once we upload new
orders to our website in a just a few days, you will be able to verify
this order by using your personal Coffaro ID code number in our online
database. Please keep in mind that since you have ordered a mixture of
the 10-month and 16-month aged wines from the same vintage, you will
probably want to wait until both versions are bottled before arranging
pick up. If you have any questions, of course, please let us know.
Thanks again and hope all is well with you and Cora Lee and the rest of
the extended Dunn family. Cheers until next time, Pat and Dave
Follow us on Facebook!
Check us out at http://www.facebook.com/DavidCoffaroWinery
David Coffaro Vineyard and Winery
7485 Dry Creek Road
Geyserville CA 95441
707-433-9715
Fax 707-433-6008
On 5/10/2012 9:52 PM, Patrick Dunn wrote:
order for 2012 futures in response to our recent offer. Sorry I haven't
communicated with you recently. Life's been getting in the way and going
by too quickly!
This will confirm that $400 was processed to your charge card account on
5/20/12 to confirm the order which you've requested. Once we upload new
orders to our website in a just a few days, you will be able to verify
this order by using your personal Coffaro ID code number in our online
database. Please keep in mind that since you have ordered a mixture of
the 10-month and 16-month aged wines from the same vintage, you will
probably want to wait until both versions are bottled before arranging
pick up. If you have any questions, of course, please let us know.
Thanks again and hope all is well with you and Cora Lee and the rest of
the extended Dunn family. Cheers until next time, Pat and Dave
Follow us on Facebook!
Check us out at http://www.facebook.com/DavidCoffaroWinery
David Coffaro Vineyard and Winery
7485 Dry Creek Road
Geyserville CA 95441
707-433-9715
Fax 707-433-6008
On 5/10/2012 9:52 PM, Patrick Dunn wrote:
2012 Grenache [aged 16 months] 4 @ $18.00
2012 Zinfandel [aged 10 months] 4 @ $16.00
2012 Escuro [aged 16 months] 4 @ $18.00
2012 Petite Sirah [aged 16 months] 4 @ $18.00
2012 Petit Verdot [aged 16 months] 4 @ $21.00
2012 Aca Modot [aged 16 months] 4 @ $21.00
Hi Kathleen!
Trust you are both well. Sorry I've not written sooner to thank you, once again, for all your wonderful hospitality and marvellous generosity. Made it to Sydney but had to wait until 3:00pm! Long story. Will save it for later!!! Have certainly been enjoying Japan. Weather has been wonderful so sightseeing has been more than pleasureable. If anything, have had to open window to our room here as am not able to understand heat/fan function on thermostat. Wonderful and cool is the night mountain air and as only a duvet for cover I would otherwise be far too warm. Cora Lee, on the other hand, is happy to be snug, beneath layer upon layer! Just about to catch a taxi for the short ride to station where we will catch a local train to Koriyama to transfer to Bullet Train to Omiya and then another train to Nagano. Fondestos and Cheers, Patrizzio!
Trust you are both well. Sorry I've not written sooner to thank you, once again, for all your wonderful hospitality and marvellous generosity. Made it to Sydney but had to wait until 3:00pm! Long story. Will save it for later!!! Have certainly been enjoying Japan. Weather has been wonderful so sightseeing has been more than pleasureable. If anything, have had to open window to our room here as am not able to understand heat/fan function on thermostat. Wonderful and cool is the night mountain air and as only a duvet for cover I would otherwise be far too warm. Cora Lee, on the other hand, is happy to be snug, beneath layer upon layer! Just about to catch a taxi for the short ride to station where we will catch a local train to Koriyama to transfer to Bullet Train to Omiya and then another train to Nagano. Fondestos and Cheers, Patrizzio!
Good to hear the ins and outs of your Japan adventures... especially loved your account of a quaint anniversary dinner spent observing local customs among the natives!
I imagine you are nearly home or actually home by now, and hope you find everything in order - all traces of wild celebrations erased from your abode, cat in one piece, etc. I wonder how Annie is? Given that you didn't mention her, I assume that she has recovered from her turn, or at least is holding her own - glad for your sake.
I have had a quiet weekend of pruning the shrubberies at Old Oak, with another one to come, in anticipation of a joint 60th birthday party here at the start of June for friends Ferne and Frank - our weather has been quite sunny in the daytimes, so hoping to make use of the deck, spa, etc.
My bookclub this week dispatched Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff - surprisingly it was quite popular with my highly choosy club buddies, and we had lots of fun nominating modern day Cleopatra equivalents over glasses of red in the back room of the Court House hotel in North Melbourne.
Steve is a free agent as of today, and hopeful of soon sorting out finer details of his contractual arrangements for the balance of 2012, meanwhile doing good works for his brothers on their various properties. He's doing regular 2 - 3 hour walks / hikes to prepare for outrunning the bears in the Rocky Mtn foothills. Love and cheers from Kathleen and Steve
Greetings from Kyoto!
Tuesday, May 22nd:
Up at 6:30am to have a shower and then a cup of java. My Starbucks sticks are dwindling so I'll need to look for more today. Cora Lee was awake, but not up, when I emerged from the shower. She had tea and we ate the oranges we'd bought yesterday, preferring to have but a light breakfast before heading for the nationally designated historical site, Dejima, site of the former Dutch Factory. This "window to the West during Japan's period of National Isolation played a vital role in the modernization of Japan." We only had about a ten minute walk to visit the reconstructed site so were buying our tickets, (¥500 each), at just after 10:00am. "Built in 1636 to isolate Europeans and prevent the spread of Christianity, Dejima was a tiny island, (formed on land reclaimed from Nagasaki Harbour), that served as Japan's only gateway to Europe for more than 200 years."
Reconstruction work started in 1996 and to date, ten of twenty-five buildings have been completed, to their early 19th century state. It really is an impressive and fascinating museum. We were both reminded of our experience at the Fortress of Louisbourg in Cape Breton. Latter is far larger, of course, but Dejima is similarly fascinating. Some of the buildings, (Chief Factor's Residence, Japanese Officials' Office, First Ship Captain's Quarters, for example), are furnished as they would have been while others, (Old Stone Warehouse, No.1 and 2 Warehouse, and others), house exhibits, of one sort or another, (tools, pottery and ceramics shards, broken clay pipes, bones of animals raised for food, weapons, and the like), as well as examples of medical and scientific equipment that was either used by early practitioners or developed as a result of teaching and the transfer of knowledge.
Of particular interest, a number exhibits of reproductions of historical paintings and photographs showed how these records were used in the reconstruction process itself, to determine building details, construction techniques, even the width of the roadways. In fact, archaeological excavation work is on-going and we witnessed about ten, white boiler-suited individuals working on the exposed stone foundations for six planned reconstructions, one man atop a step ladder taking photographs of an exposed section of one of the digs close to a public walkway.
We spent about two hours there, (and certainly could have spent longer as the detailed exhibits warranted close inspection), along with hordes of school groups. However, the layout is such that it can absorb many, many tourists and the experience is not diminished. A short, 10-15 minute film provides a valuable overview of daily, political and business life, from the point of view of the local Japanese translators, critical figures, as one might imagine, employed to facilitate business transactions, to translate everything from ships' manifests to personal letters. A number of the elite translators were responsible for the publication of many of the key medical and scientific works brought to Japan by the Dutch and other Europeans. Conversely, reports about Japan, its flora and fauna, and examples of its culture and fine arts, flowed in the opposite direction. A simply remarkable glimpse at a community where two cultures literally collided.
It was close to 12:30pm when we walked back towards out hotel and decided, en route, to have lunch back in Chinatown. Settled on a restaurant not far from where we'd eaten the night before. Surrounding streets were filled with troupes of school children, searching for places to eat themselves. Place we settled upon was similarly awash with uniformed middle-schoolers and their teachers but everything was very orderly as we've come to expect, having seen many such field trips at most of the museums and other points of interest we've visited so far.
Meal was truly delicious, My selection consisted of a huge bowl of rice topped with vegetables, with a large plate of rice noodles with vegetables and another plate of braised chicken, for Cora Lee. I used the small bowl of rice which came with the chicken dish to sop up the considerable amount of remaining, ever so tasty sauce, from Coriandre's vegetable platter. While waiting for our food, which didn't take but five minutes to arrive, we enjoyed watching the students at the surrounding tables. Restaurant had a second floor and Cora Lee could see more classes being sent upstairs as all of the tables on the first floor were filled.
Paid our bill, well satisfied with both the excellent fare and the reasonable price, (£2,600=$32.50), and a few minutes later we were on the Blue Line, #1, taking the tram to Stop # 19, Maysuyama-Machi, where we visited the Atomic Bomb Hypocenter, a large open space with a sand surface, surrounded by a dense border of mature trees, where we found a number of different memorials to the victims of the blast, some laden with hundreds and hundreds of colourful strings of paper cranes. One memorial was a wall remnant from Urakami Cathedral, (the grandest church in East Asia at the time), located about 600 meters northeast of the hypocenter. The explosion destroyed the cathedral and a portion of the southern wall was brought here when the new cathedral was rebuilt in 1958.
Close-bye, down a series of steps, an original portion of the ground in the hypocenter area is preserved and displayed behind large plate glass viewing windows. AS one could imagine, ground level was strewn with huge amounts of debris from destroyed buildings, scorched earth, melted glass and other material. A difficult sight to witness and we had not even started on our journey into the hellish nightmare, made all to real, by the dropping of the plutonium bomb, (nicknamed "Fatman"), by the American B29 "Bockscar", detonating about 500 metres above the site at 11:02 am, August 9th, 1945, causing approximately 150,000 deaths or injuries.
From the Hypocenter we walked up a slight hill to enter the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, opened in April 1996, one of the 50th anniversary projects for the bombing. Once again, the entrance was crowded with orderly groups of school children, in neat formation, waiting patiently for their turn to visit the exhibits. Must say, the horrific and often grisly nature of the subject matter aside, the museum does quite a remarkable job of detailing the historical development of Nagasaki, the modern military history of Japan, focusing on the events leading to WW II and operations and campaigns in the Pacific Theatre, with an emphasis on civilian and military life in Nagasaki, after the declaration of war and up until the time the bomb was dropped.
As one moves through the museum one passes exhibits of photographs and large scale models of Nagasaki prior to the bombing; through the ruins of the atomic wasteland, the state of the city immediately after the detonation; political events leading up to the decision, on the part of the Allies, to use the bomb against Japan; a life-size model of "Fatman"; the twisted water tank from Keiho Middle School, about 800 meters away from the hypocenter; a schoolgirl's lunchbox, all that remained of Satoko Tsusumi, (14 years old), identified by the name and class number written on the bottom of the small metal container, the uneaten rice within, charred by the heat of the fires started after the bombing; the silhouette of an air-raid lookout, and his ladder, who came down from the roof of the Nagasaki Fortress Headquarters, exposed to the flash, about 4.4 kilometers south of the hypocenter. The tar covering the wall exposed directly to the flash burned and disappeared but that in the victim's shadow remained. A literal atomic photograph.
Countless other examples abound, (bones of a human hand stuck in a clump of glass that melted, scorched clothing worn by exposed workers, a helmet with remains of a skull), but one of the most poignant is a wall clock, found in a house about 800m from the hypocenter, shattered by the blast, its hands stopped at 11:02 am, the moment of the explosion. Time, at this instant, literally stopped for the inhabitants of Nagasaki and by extension, for the rest of humankind.
Following exhibits record rescue and relief activity, testimonies of survivors and then those which detail modern nuclear weapons and the victims of nuclear tests and accidents. The last section, From Nagaski to the World, makes a powerful plea for a world free of nuclear weapons. Obviously, a very, very difficult experience but one that is so terribly important to recognize. The horror of war cuts across time and space. Both the immediate and lasting devastation which the atomic bombs unleashed on Japan took cruelty took unparalleled levels.
Somewhat mentally dazed and slightly disoriented by the unthinkable carnage, wrought, by and large, on civilians, we decided we needed some respite from all the death and destruction so we made our way to back to the nearest tram station where we caught the Red Line, # 3, to Kokaido-Mae, Stop # 45, near Nagasaki City Auditorium, to tranfer to the Green Line, # 5, Stop # 38, to ride it all the way to Ouratenshudo Shita, Stop # 50, where we wanted to visit Glover Garden. Quite a hike, up some fairly narrow, tourist shop lined streets, a series of wide stone stairs and four escalators, (two of them very long), later we reached our goal. In 1863, Thomas Blake Glover, a Scot, built a house on the hill in Minami-Yamate. One is afforded a magnificent view of much of Nagasaki and its working harbour. (By chance we chatted with a young American, working on the Korean cruise ship docked there, while on the tram. He plays in one of the bands aboard and I was reminded of our brief encounter with a Canadian, from Whiterock, on our river cruise in Brisbane, who played in the rock band on the cruise ship docked near the last stop on our outing.) Among many other business ventures, he founded, together with Robert Neill Walker, (He was another influential businessman in the world of the the the Nagasaki foreign settlement, a cold drink pioneer, naming two of his beverages "Banzai Cider" and "Banzai Lemonade". William Alt, from Britain, established the Alt Tradiing Company and in partnership with Nagasaki businessman, Kei Oura, he bought up and exported tea from all around Kyushu, introducing the world to Japanese tea. Fredrick Ringer, also from Britain, was involved in a wide range of activities, including the construction of Nagasaki waterworks, milling and electric power generation.) the Japan Brewery Company, the predecessor of the current Kirin Brewery Company.
His son, Tomisaburo Kuraba, born to Glover's Japanese wife,Tsuru, contributed greatly to the promotion of the fisheries industry in Japan and created a social group for foreigners, the Naigai Club, and subsequently established the Unzen Golf Course, Japan's first public course. Glover was closely connected to Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of Mitsubishi, and after his death, his younger brother, Yanosuke, the second president of the company, invited Glover into Mitsubishi as a consultant.
While the Glover, Walker and Alt residences were built on different sites of this hillside, other buildings, important to Nagasaki's history and culture have been relocated here:
the Mitsubishi No. 2 Dock House; the Jiyu-Tei Restaurant, Japan's first Western-style eating establishment; the Nagasaki District Court President's Official Residence and the Steele Memorial School, a mission school built in 1887. Numerous statues, historical stone markers and fish ponds dot the lovely, manicured grounds. Of particular interest, to me at least, were the statues of Puccini and Tamaki Miura who became world-famous for her role as Madame Butterfly, set in Nagasaki, of course. Some of the costumes she wore and props she used are also on display.
Just before 6:00pm a guard came by to usher me out as the gardens close at 6:00pm on the dot. Coriandre and I had gone in different directions about thirty minutes before as she wanted to ride the escalators down. Her foot was sore after almost six or seven hours of sightseeing. I wanted to follow the lovely paved paths that wound around the edge of the property so I descended that way and we met at the entrance. Short stroll back to Stop # 50, riding as far as Stop # 31, Tsuki-Machi, close to the entrance to Chinatown. After we alighted we went into a grocery store not far from our hotel and bought more picnic and breakfast fixings for next morning and our trip to Hiroshima. By the time we were actually back in our room, it was after 7:00pm, a full, full day. We both plopped down on the bed and put our feet up, watching a bit of BBC World News. Around 8:15pm we wondered if we really wanted to go out for dinner, both of us still feeling contentedly full form our delicious lunch. We decided we were happy to stay in, and munched on some cheese and crackers around 9:00pm, after we'd both showered and changed into our kimonos.
I caught up on email and the Infernal Diaries while Cora Lee read and watched TV. By 11:00pm Cora Lee was sound asleep and I was reasonably pleased with my daily entry so I brushed and flossed and read a few chapters of Cold Granite before setting the alarm for 6:15am. I wanted to be up early enough to finish working on the last entry and then wake Cora Lee up, with a cup of tea, to be ready, without rushing for our 9:57am departure for Hiroshima. We had a ten or fifteen minute tram ride to get to the station and I still needed to find an ATM which accepted my RBC debit card and was hoping there would be one near the terminal. Fell asleep, troubling images from the hypocenter flickering at the corners of my mind.
To be continued...
| A chance to make a real difference |
Hi Patrick,
My Rotary Club is doing
its fifth annual fundraiser for the Strathcona Community Centre
Basketball Program. This Program provides a positive opportunity for
kids who live in the downtown east side, Canada's poorest postal
code. Almost all of the 450 young people enrolled in the program are
from working poor or single parent families with parents who work 14
to 16 hours a day just to provide the very basics.
Strathcona Community
Centre Basketball Program:
- Provides a positive life experience for kids who are constantly at risk of violence and drug addiction;
- Is one of the very few affordable (completely free), positive, safe activities for children on the downtown east side;
- Gives 450 kids, from preschool to grade 12, their only opportunity to participate in sports.
Please
take a moment to look at this video made by one of the young people
whose life was changed by the program:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwv_rgwy0ak
.
Jennifer is now at Thompson Rivers University where she is the
star
of the women's basketball program.
She
is also the
first member of her family ever to have a post secondary education.
The program desperately
needs funds for:
- Safe transportation to and from away basketball games. (Most of the families do not own a car and many have to work during the times when their children are playing.)
- Uniforms. Many of the youth are playing in ill-fitting or hand me down uniforms. Some are wearing shoes so old that they are unsafe. For many of these kids a pair of basketball shoes costs the same as their family's grocery budget for two weeks. The program needs decent uniforms and shoes to allow the players to participate safely and with pride and dignity.
- Ongoing training camps, coaching certification. Registering the teams in the RBL league costs $80 per player and tournaments fees can run as high as $1,250.
In the last four years,
with your help we have raised over $85,000 for these great kids and
we are organizing our fifth fund raising Hoop-a-thon with the
Basketball Program. Here is how it works.
Fifty young people from
the program will assemble in the Strathcona Community Centre Gym on
Saturday June 16th at 10:00AM. They will be organized into ten teams
and each team member will try to score as many free throws as she or
he can in sixty seconds. We expect that the kids will work hard to
score a total of 600 baskets.
This is the 40th
anniversary of the Strathcona Community Centre and of the Basketball
program, so our goal is to raise $40,000.
I would like to ask you
to support this worthy fundraiser, by clicking 'Reply', filling
out the pledge information below and then clicking 'Send'.
|
I pledge the amount of
|
|
Per basket scored
|
|
I do not want to pledge more than
|
|
In total
|
Funds will be
collected AFTER the event (you will be able to pay by cheque or
credit card) and tax receipts will be supplied for all donations.
A pledge of five cents
per basket will buy a kid a uniform shirt or shorts.
A pledge of ten cents
per basket will buy one kid tournament fees for a season
A pledge of twenty
cents per basket will buy a kid basketball shoes.
Tax receipts will be
supplied for all donations.
Thank you so much for
your continued support of this program.
Robert.
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