Made the spontaneous　decision on friday night to go for a short trip to Hiroshima, a city not only renown for inducing chronic depression to all its visitors contemplating a second about the effects of ionizing rays emitting explosives but also famous for beeing in the vicinity of one of Japan’s most famous and beautiful tourist attractions, Miyajima with a floating red gate in the middle of the ocean, attracting herds of guided tourists, the kind that I distaste the most. With these prospective goals in mind, I abandoned any sense of duty to my outstanding labwork and joined Liz and Stephen on their travels, certainly a journey of adventurous character. Had we given the idea a split second of thought, we might have noticed the ubiquous taifun warnings issued for just this weekend for just exactly this part of Japan. With an insufficiently waterproof backpack of the summer clothing, ignoring the obvious thread to any joyful excursion, POURING RAIN, to call the evil by its name, we hopped on the first shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima and arrived about at the same time the taifun did. The first raindrops were starting to fall, shortly after we left the train station, and to ease the readers suspense, I give away that it hardly stopped raining in buckets until we safely but soakingly arrived　back in Nagoya　two days later.

Hiroshima is the first city that was destroyed by a nuclear bomb and the reminders of that summer morning on Aug. 6th are omnipresent in form of uncountable memorials for the numerous people that fell victim to the bomb. A cloud of overwhelming suffering hangs over this place casting a dark shadow of sorrow poised to dominate any train of thought. The explosion at 8:15 AM burned human shadows into stone, turned a city build on wood into a flaming inferno and left all survivors not just with the scars of burns and the pain of delayed diseases caused by radiation, but also with the memories of the apparent horrors of nuclear war, leaving mental scars not to be imagined.

The time the world learned of a new fear.

After we had left the atomic bomb museum, we wandered around aimlessly only to find that we were in desperate need for some mindless fun and entered a game parlor, a quintessential Japanese invention. Next to the usual video games of carnage or high speed chases, Japanese game parlors also feature games that let you slip into your dream profession.

We can see Liz as a fish cutter, random Japanese as prospective DJs, Steph and me shooting away on the photo game, and the famously brainless “taiko drum game”. Games tailored to the need of hard core nerds are “type away the attacking monsters“ or the old school “Super Mario”

After spending the night in an internet cafe, a much cheaper and better connected accommodation that any hostel, we sought out to find Miyajima, a small island with a gigantic, red, floating gate and ancient shrines, sayed to be one of the 3 most beautiful places in Japan.

We found ourselves a bit confused by the apparent lack of signs or directions that would help us find the ferry, quite unlike the usual Japanese tradition of guiding the foreigner with the subtleness of a sledgehammer. (Can you see the sarcasm? Then you might not be American.)

The floating gate that is prominently featured every guidebook about Japan turned out to be a gigantic lie. Here I present proof to the world today that the “floating toori (gate)” is not even remotely floating, but firmly attached in the soil of the beach, what a scam.

The rain only adds the beauty of the scenery and the comfortable feeling of moisture, no liquid in my shoes. (here it is again, sarcasm)

In search for directions, a deer started eating our map. Now that’s not what I call a welcoming gesture towards tourists. This did not keep Liz from running up to every one of these vicious creatures to hug them, and yell in a very Japanese fashion: “kawaiiiii” for the rest of the day.

The mountain shrine, impressive! (no, no sarcasm here, sorry)

The next day, the weather played an ugly trick on us. First, the rain seemed to have died down a lot, so we decided to go to the island once more time, to enjoy the 3rd most beautiful sight of Japan in better weather conditions, but as soon as we had boarded the ferry … Here the gate at high tide.

But now you know the secret, it really isn’t floating at all, really! In spite of the rain was the trip a success, thanks to the adventurousness that Liz and Stephen, who found themselves