Category Archives: History

Ted’s writings about history

Hiroshima – Day One, AB

Heritage, History, Opinion, , , ,

A-Bomb Dome, Hiroshima

Hiroshima.

The name is synonymous with the A-Bomb. The two are interlocked, interchangeable, forever connected by the one ghastly day.

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 am, the atomic war age began. Since that moment there has not been a day that “nuclear” (even when mispronounced) wasn’t perched on the lips of the world. I would carve up human time into BB (before the bomb), and AB (after the bomb). We are living in the year 65 AB.

Those who lived in Hiroshima those 65 years ago would have preferred that another city (or best, none at all) had received the “First to be A-Bombed” honor. But Hiroshima met the U.S military criteria (had not been previously bombed, few known US prisoners of war, significant military industry, clear weather on the day of the bombing) and the Enola Gay successfully completed her mission. One B-29, one bomb, and within minutes over 100,000 Hiroshima residents were dead or dying.

There were other bombings in WW II with a higher loss of life – the fire bombings of Tokyo and Dresden, for example. In the six weeks after Japan conquered Nanking as many as 300,000 men, women, and children were butchered. The Battle of Okinawa resulted in around 240,000 deaths, more than half of them civilians. The Battle of Stalingrad may have cost as many as 1 million lives. WW II is when the human race perfected the mass slaughter of soldiers and civilians. WW II brought mass killing into the industrial age.

But the atomic bomb, Little Boy, forever defines the killing in Hiroshima as singular. After that moment the world knew that no one could hide, no one could be safe. Within two years the Soviets would have the bomb, and the race to hell would begin.

We visited where it all started – the epicenter in Hiroshima. The US military had designated the t-shaped Aioi Bridge as the target, and the bomb detonated around 1500 feet above that spot. Virtually nothing remained of the city or its inhabitants below, and what did survive the initial blast soon burned in the massive conflagration. People would continue to die of radiation-related illnesses for decades.

One of the buildings that still remains is the Genbaku or A-Bomb Dome. Everyone in the building died instantly, but the dome miraculously survived the direst blast from above. The dome has been renovated at least twice to keep it in its immediate post-bombing condition. The dome, to this day, is Hiroshima’s connection between the death of the past and the life of the future. The Genbaku also serves the world as the symbol of the atomic war age.

The triangular stretch of land that ends at the Aioi Bridge, completely leveled by the A-Bomb, has been designated as the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. We walked across the Motoyasu Bridge and made our way toward the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

The carefully manicured and landscaped park bears no resemblance to its condition after the bombing. Little remains of the detritus from that time. However, the museum itself does house an impressive collection of artifacts, photographs, and first-hand accounts of that moment. We spent at least two hours in the museum, and easily could have doubled the time without seeing it all.

As in Nagasaki, the museum in Hiroshima invests most of its resources in telling the story of the A-Bomb – its development, its developers, its use. What Hiroshima does not do (nor does Nagasaki) is provide a broad context within which the A-Bombing might be better understood.

Here is an example. Only in a back corner did I find any mention of the Japanese atrocities in Nanking. There I found a poster from that era showing the residents of Hiroshima celebrating the fall of Nanking. At the bottom right corner of the exhibit are these words – “In Nanking, however, Chinese people were being massacred by the Japanese Army.”

Next, though, is this information in brackets, as in an afterthought:
[Reports of the number killed vary depending on the area and the times studied. Some estimates are in the tens of thousands, while others put the figure well over 100,000. In China, the most common estimate is 300,000.]

What the exhibit and museum fail to mention is that the low-ball figure is the one most often quoted by ultra-nationalists in Japan who, like Holocaust deniers, would like for Nanking to fade into obscurity. For that reason China voted at the UN against World Heritage status for Hiroshima, and the US abstained.

I do believe that the sins of the fathers shall not be visited on their sons. But I also believe that the truth will set you free (I apologize for two hackneyed adages in a row). The Hiroshima museum is a wonderful exhibit, but its failing to provide an objective perspective of the bombing diminishes its value. You will find fact here, but not enough to lead you to the truth.

Please, I am not trying to underplay the tragedy of Hiroshima. But how do you ensure that such devastation does not happen again if you do not understand why Hiroshima happened in the first place? You cannot fully understand Gettysburg without first acknowledging the sins of slavery. You cannot fully grasp the Mideast today without acknowledging the sins of the colonial powers after WW I. You cannot fully comprehend the bombing of Hiroshima without clearly acknowledging the Rape of Nanking.

I am not pointing fingers. All of the responsible parties have departed this life. But selective interpretation is dishonest interpretation, and does not aid the viewer and visitor in coming to a better understanding of the past and how it might guide the future.

Interpretation, to be honest, must at times be impolitic. Interpretation, at times, must take risks. Interpretation is a quest, a trip with no end, with no final destination. Interpretation is endlessly turning over rocks, hoping to find a scrap or shard underneath that might fit into the jig-saw puzzle of the past.

Interpretation is not an exact science, for our work, our investigation, is never complete. The questions and disputes are never settled. Interpretation is impressionistic, offering enough information, enough color, to allow a viewer to discern the essence (if not the detail) of the subject. I left Hiroshima still wanting to see more of the color of the tragedy of the war and less of the fact of that one moment in time.

Ted
25 Mar 2010

Nagasaki Reminiscences and My Red Vest Day

Culture, History, Opinion, , , ,

Oura Catholic Church, Nagasaki
Today I am 60. In Japan men wear a red vest on this day (I will make do with a green shirt). Last night we kissed my fifties goodbye, and this morning I am contemplating geezerhood. As a child I thought of my grandfather as being ancient, yet he died at only 64. Last night my granddaughter reminded me that “you are only as old as you feel.” True, except that you are only as old as your body allows you to feel. Age is both body and soul.

We are in Nara, in the Mikasa roykan within the Nara Koen (Park). We are well above the valley that holds the city, surrounded by forest, deer, and silence. Given the tourist bustle of Kyoto, I welcome this peaceful interlude.

Before I regress and try to bring my travel accounts current, I must tell you about last night’s dinner. On this trip I have noticed similarities between Cassady and Virginia. The two share eyes, cheeks, and noses. They love each other’s company, and will spend the day sifting through shop after shop. And, they share laughter.

Cassady and Virginia do not just guffaw. They are choked by diaphragm-paralyzing paroxysms, incapable of communicating to the sober minded what they find so amusing. When they are finally able to breathe and speak again, the joke is a pale imitation of the laughter witnessed. With Cassady and Virginia, the fun is in watching how they react to a joke, not in hearing the joke itself.

Cassady is also like her mother and Japanese grandmother, marrying their dry humor and reserve with the American brashness and bravado of her father. She is a perfect amalgamation of the best of the two countries, and a delight to be around. I treasure the moments we share.

Now to retrace our steps. If you recall, after Okinawa we continued to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I believe that I delved into the bomb issue in my Nagasaki account, and, to be honest, I have little interest in doing the same with Hiroshima.

Yet the two cities illustrate a challenge that I face in my work. Nagasaki and Hiroshima are known, at least outside of Japan, for one defining moment in their histories. Yet both have complex (and fascinating) histories and cultures that reveal more about Japan than the tragedies of one war. Consider the following.

In the mid-16th century Portuguese missionaries (including Saint Francis Xavier) arrived in Japan and began their missionary work throughout Kyushu. As interest in Christianity grew (along with the arrival of firearms), the feudal lords became increasingly concerned about their restless masses. Christians were publicly crucified in Nagasaki. Christianity became a capital offense, foreigners were expelled, and for over two centuries Japan closed itself to the outside world. Japan became the North Korea of the Victorian age.

Closed, except in Nagasaki. The Japanese ejected the Portuguese, but allowed the Dutch to maintain trade relations since they were far more interested in making money than converts. The Dutch, however, were sequestered on a small island specifically constructed for this purpose in 1636 – Dejima. Only through Dejima did Japan maintain contact with the world. This exclusivity remained intact until 1857 and the opening of Japan and the Meiji Period. Soon other ports eclipsed Dejima in popularity, and by 1902 Nagasaki had reclaimed the island and reconnected Dejima to the mainland.

In 1952, however, Nagasaki began acquiring the private lands in and around Dejima in hopes of restoring the Dutch trading post. By 2001 the land had been acquired, and the restoration began. Now there are ten buildings that have been reconstructed, and visitors can experience what was once the only contact between Japan and the western world.

Next we visited the Koshi-byo, a Confucian temple constructed by the residents of Nagasaki in 1893. The grounds of the temple also house the Chinese History Museum, with an impressive display on loan from the Chinese government. In the museum there is a splendid ivory carving of a Happy Buddha surrounded by children.

We ended the day at Glover Garden. After the reopening of Japan a Scotsman, Thomas Glover, chose Nagasaki as the place to make his fortune. He introduced the steam locomotive to Japan, modernized coal mining, and began the Kirin beer company. This garden contains his former mansion, as well as a number of trade-related buildings from that era. There are statues of both Puccini and Madame Butterfly in the garden, since Puccini set his famous opera in Nagasaki.

Adjacent to the Glover Garden is the Oura Catholic Church, constructed in 1863 to commemorate the 26 Christians crucified in 1597. According to the literature this is the oldest Gothic-styled building in Japan. As I entered the church I found myself curiously at peace, at home. I am certain that Christian traders must have felt the same so far from their homes. One does not have to be particularly religious to feel a connection to kindred spirits while in a foreign land.

How ironic that the one city in Japan where the cultures mingled (Christian, Confucian, Buddhist, Shinto) would be the target of the second atomic bomb. Even more wry (particularly for Nagasaki) is that the US military had chosen Kokura as the primary target, but bad weather forced Bock’s Car (the B-29 carrying the bomb) to a secondary target – Nagasaki.

But isn’t that war?

War is madness. War is a boda de sangre, with victim and victimizer fated to seal the marriage in the final bloodletting. For this reason war must be avoided. Once engaged, sanity, logic, and love fall victim to madness, passion, and hatred.

My opposing war (all war) is neither political nor religious. My opposing war is not naïve (trust me, I sincerely believe that there are bad people in the world). My opposing war is recognizing a fundamental flaw in the human soul. My opposing war is knowing that once unleashed the dogs of war are impossible to cage, and only calm once satiated with the blood of innocents.

Ted
22 Mar 2010

Nagasaki – Growing Old With The Bomb

History, Opinion, ,
Peace Statue in Nagasaki

If you are my age you grew up with the bomb. As a child I would peer out the window of my Dad’s Chevrolet as we drove to my grandparent’s home in Paris (Texas) and wonder if any of the summer clouds billowing in the sky signaled an attack (Dad! That one looks like a mushroom!). In October 1962, at Landrum Junior High in Houston, we drilled daily during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The siren would howl, and we would drop under our desks and cover our heads in expectation of the big blast.

During that frightful week the school administration had the bright idea that we would have a drill to test evacuating the school and going home. We were not to actually go home, but to make our way to our transportation of choice (bus, car, bike) and then return to class. My friend Kenny Farris didn’t get the message, and once on his bike he high-tailed it back to the neighborhood.

If you are my age, you grew up with the bomb.

But the bomb never came. We drilled. We feared. We watched Nikita Khrushchev pound his shoe on his desk at the UN and promise that he would bury us. Khrushchev faded, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the bomb never came.

Except there are two cities where the bomb did come, and I am visiting both. In fact, I am sitting in my hotel room tonight, sipping a cold glass of sake in Hiroshima. I am drinking to those who died, to those who fought, and to those who knew (such as Leo Szilard), that once the bomb fell children everywhere would see mushrooms in summer clouds.

I never expected to live to be 30. Now I will be 60 in a few days, and I have a granddaughter who is 21. She is both Japanese and American, and we are, together with her grandmother, trying to grasp the meaning of Nagasaki and Hiroshima within the context of our family. Our family is both victor and vanquished, and this trip is about how we, as a family, reconcile the two.

Reconciliation, for us, began in Nagasaki. We arrived after a two-hour express train ride from Fukuoka, and we settled into one of the famous ryokans in the region, Sakamoto.  After years (decades, actually) of traveling in Japan there is no comfort I appreciate more than a traditional ryokan. As Cassady and Virginia shopped, I relaxed in our room and worked on a couple of projects hanging over my head.

My work continued the following morning, but that afternoon we joined a formal bus tour of the sites that we, as a family, wanted to see. This is not a tour for the squeamish. This is a tour for those who want to grab Nagasaki by the neck and throttle it until the truth shakes loose. Like paregoric, the truth is best dosed in a single gulp. The tour began at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum.

Nothing here is new. In school we were shown the effects of the bomb, watching grainy black-and-white movies with banshee winds sweeping buildings into dust. But being here, at the exact spot where so many suffered and died, is different. Nagasaki is not a movie. Nagasaki is not a myth. Nagasaki is a flesh-and-blood community, an amalgamation of people whose parents and grandparents were victims of the unbridled insanity of war.

Before I move forward, let me make one side comment. I am not questioning Truman’s decision or the morality of the dropping of the atomic bomb. As one then not yet born, that is not my right.

Yet consider the following quotes from two who were. Paul Fussell, the educator and writer, sat in Okinawa in 1945 waiting for what appeared to be the inevitable invasion of mainland Japan. Upon hearing of Hiroshima, Fussell recalled being overcome with the realization that “we were going to live. We were going to grow up to adulthood after all.” Fussell also wrote that the “worst thing about war was the sitting around and wondering what you were doing morally.”

Now consider this quote from Keijiro Matsushima; “I did not come here to blame. You veterans did your job. But at the same time, what you dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was very horrible. Now, if possible, please, just a drop of your tears, and a prayer that this never happens again.”

We came to Nagasaki to shed tears and to pray that this never happens again, to our family or to yours.

The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb museum is raw, brazen, at times grotesque, and yet sympathetically elegant. As you enter you are confronted with the moment: August 9, 1945, 11:02 AM. In an instant, between 40,000 and 80,000 human beings were irradiated, incinerated, and, in many cases, vaporized. These people, going about their lives as we do ours, were carbonized.

The question of guilt or innocence is moot. Yes, Nagasaki and Hiroshima were military targets in that Mitsubishi operated armament plants in both. Yes, there were around 2000 school age children who were conscripted to work in the Mitsubishi armament plant in Nagasaki who died in the bombing. These children were “conscripts” (as were around 10,000 Koreans), yet they died among the “guilty.” I am assigning no blame. Yet the voices of the dead, the voices of the innocent, deserve a hearing.

The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, in part, speaks for the dead. As you enter you hear the tick-tock of a clock, measuring the moments before the blast. The first image is the famous film of the detonation, taken as the American bombers circled Nagasaki before returning to base. Across from the video is a clock from that city, stopped at 11:02. By 11:03 thousands were dead.

The remainder of the museum houses the detritus from that moment, and attempts to explain the process by which Nagasaki came to be the target from the world’s first plutonium bomb – Fat Man. As many of you know, my company is involved in interpretation, the art of communicating these iconic resources and events. I am of the camp that believes that “fair and balanced” is neither. No interpretation is without the biases or opinions of the writer. A simple choice of one word can shade the entire meaning of a story, an article, or an interpretive sign. Words such as “victim,” for example, are loaded. Some words, such as “gay,” have evolved in recent times. What about the word “terrorism?”

Here is another example. In the English language version of the Nagasaki Atomic Bombing Monuments pamphlet, there is this section:

Soil stratum of ground level at the time of the atomic bombing. This soil stratum contains fragments of roof tiles and bricks, scorched soil, melted glass and other objects damaged in the explosion. It is preserved in order the tell of the atrocity of the atomic bombing.

Atrocity? See how one word, perhaps, in this case, a translation glitch, can color the meaning of an entire narrative? Replace atrocity (implying a crime) with tragedy and the message is dramatically changed. Touchy stuff, this interpretation business.

From my perspective, the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum offers a reasonably balanced approach to the event with one glaring exception. There is no discussion of the role of the Japanese military or its leader, Hirohito, in the events that led to August 9, 1945, 11:02 AM. There is a triangular display of all people who had a role in the development and use of the bomb (Roosevelt, Churchill, Einstein, Neils Bohr, Robert Oppenheimer, even Hitler and Stalin), but Hirohito is nowhere to be seen. And what about Yoshio Nishina, a former student of Bohr’s, ordered in April 1941 to establish the Japanese atomic bomb project? Japan, Germany, Britain, Russia, and the United States were all chasing the bomb. Isn’t that part of the Nagasaki story as well?

History is a complex interlacing of conflicting, contradictory, convoluted, and confusing events that shed light, and often shadows, on what we experience today. To apply logic to the past is as nonsensical as trying to apply logic to the present. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the story of war. War is insane. The decisions of governments in war are insane.  Honor the dead, celebrate the heroic, yet pray that humankind finds its way past war to loving one’s neighbor.

I came to know Japan through Seth’s wife and family, and now our three grandchildren. I have come to respect the culture, the history of these people, and the incomprehensible faith that allowed them to rebuild after being so totally undone. What has reconciled our family, with fathers and grandfathers once embroiled on opposite sides in a world war, is love.

Okinawa Time Travel

Culture, Food, Heritage, History, Opinion, , ,
Dance performance, Shuri-jo

America imports oil from Saudi Arabia, cars from Japan, wine from France, shrimp from Viet Nam, coffee from Costa Rica, jalapeños from Mexico, and even toothpicks from China. We have perfected consumption, and the world feeds our insatiable appetite for stuff.

In return, America exports pop culture. No matter where you might wander, blithely expecting to be swallowed in a culture unlike your own, your first meal likely will be accompanied by the viral voices of Michael Jackson or Lady Gaga.

A couple of years ago I traveled with a group organized by Jerry Adelmann of Openlands to work in three World Heritage Sites in southern Yunnan. This is end-of-the-road China, hugging the border with Burma. Enjoying an evening in a pizza joint in the walled city of Dali, we were circled by young Chinese who could have effortlessly blended in New York, Paris, or Tokyo. Fast food, rap music, IPods, cell phones, and reality TV will be our legacy, I suppose.

You can no more escape American culture in Japan than you can in America. A few minutes ago we arrived in Nagasaki, and while walking through the train station we were met by American pop music blasting from every pore in this city. Consider the irony for a moment. We are in Nagasaki, for God’s sake, and our Japanese hosts effortlessly embrace an Americanized culture.

Please don’t mistake these observations for cheap America bashing. I have seen more of America than virtually anyone I know, and my love affair with our country is unquestioned. I am constantly reminded that we also gave the world pragmatic democracy, and that contribution will (hopefully) remain our bequest to future generations such as my granddaughter’s.

I am not referring to the jingoistic democracy that has been imposed through misguided nation-building (or unraveling) in recent years. I mean the democracy that grows organically through our examples of selflessness and good works (consider the Occupation here, for example, or the Marshall Plan in Europe).

Let me offer a case in point. No single issue has haunted America since its founding as has slavery. Slavery is the one irreconcilable impasse that the founders failed to resolve in Philadelphia, passing it on to future generations to address. America invested over 700,000 lives in a Civil War to finally make good on the promise of liberty for all, yet only in my lifetime in the Jim Crow South have our black citizens, our neighbors, been invested with the rights enjoyed by the rest of us from the beginning.

At this moment we are led by a president who is himself an African-American, married to a woman who is the direct descendent of African slaves. According to a recent article in the NY Times, “In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475.”

“In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time.”

“Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady.”

Let that sink in for a moment. Where else in the world would this be possible? Michelle Obama’s grandfather was a postman, and her father worked as a pump worker at the City of Chicago water plant. Barack O’Bama’s paternal grandfather was a Kenyan mission cook and herbalist, and served time in a British prison for being involved in the early African liberation movement (as well as where he was tortured). The president’s father served as a government economist in Kenya.

In contrast, George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Sheldon Bush, served Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from 1952 until January 1963.  His father, George H.W. Bush, followed Ronald Reagan as the 41st president of the United States.

A black American president is as likely as a Jew being elected leader of Iran, or an Aboriginal as prime minister of Australia. Yet it did happen in America, and as a peaceful blessing of a stable democracy. I am writing, at this very moment, in Nagasaki, a city utterly obliterated in WW II as the result of a despotic government, led by an emperor thought to be divine, willing to sacrifice the blood of its citizens to the last drop.

Our country, in moments of greatness, finds a way to rise above its limitations, its prejudices, and its hatreds. Of course we have every right to criticize the policies and actions of our presidents. The first amendment to the constitution guarantees that right. In fact, let me remind you of the entire text of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Those who would slander and personally attack our president or his wife because of their ethnicity or color damage our democracy, I believe. The “birthers” who have questioned his citizenship and those who have alluded to his Islamic heritage (which, even if a practicing Muslim, would be his constitutional right as protected by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment), besmirch the promise of our democracy so needed by much of the world. Of course these people have to right to express themselves under the protections of this same First Amendment, just as I have the right to call them misguided, bigoted fools.

Dragon print, Shuri-jo, Okinawa

I am ahead of myself, though. On our third day in Okinawa we left the Marriott (talk about American culture) and wandered back south toward Naha in search of this island’s cultural soul. There are several World Heritage Sites on the island that have been restored to honor the Ryukyu past. We first visited Zakimi-jo, one of the citadels built during the Ryukyu era to defend the interests of a local lord. The remnants of the walled fortress offer an unobstructed view across the island, from the East China Sea east to the Pacific. Given Okinawa’s importance to trade between China, Korea, and Japan during the Ryukyu, these elevated vantage points were invariably sites of forts and fortresses such as Zakimi-jo. In the small museum there were several examples of ceramic funereal urns, an important tradition to the Ryukyu. After a period of years the Ryukyu would cleanse the bones of their loved ones, and place them in these urns.

We left 15th Century Ryukyu Japan to beam up to the 21st Century and the Kadena AFB. After the war the U.S. military established several bases on Okinawa, Kadena among them. These bases have been sources of tension here for decades, and the strain still influences politics throughout the country. Many here would like for the U.S. military to leave, or, at least, to consolidate the bases. There are others who are adamant that the U.S. should stay. Every time North Korea lobs another missile across Japan, or another U.S. sailor or soldier commits a crime while off base, the issue flares once again.

We stopped across from the base and climbed to the top of an observation tower to view the base. What fascinated me were the small farms and gardens that locals were cultivating at the base of the sound baffles that border the runway. As I said before, no land goes to waste in Japan. And what about Tommy Lee Jones on the vending machine in the lobby? The boss?

Mr. Iwana next led us to one of his favorite restaurants in the village of Kadena. This soba shop is the archetypal Japanese cubbyhole, with three tables and two additional in the tatami room. The owner/chef specializes in Japanese-style buckwheat noodles made daily. He is also a jazz buff, and one wall of the café houses his impressive collection of vinyl albums. There we slurped our noodles to the music of Coltrane and Monk.

As with so much of Japan, our final destination is significant at multiple levels. Shuri-jo is the finest example of Ryukyu on the island. This extensive castle is still in the process of being restored after being obliterated during WW II. The interpretation in Shiri-jo, sadly, failed to mention precisely why the complex had been destroyed during the Battle of Okinawa.

Underneath the castle, as much as 100 feet below ground, were extensive tunnels and caverns that housed the Japanese military commander, Ushijima, and at least 20,000 of his troops. The American military relentlessly bombarded the Shuri site, with little impact on the Japanese. These caverns today are closed to the public, although there are access points if one knows where to look (such as Mr. Iwama).

We also were treated to a dance performance within the castle grounds. According to my granddaughter, the dance consisted of elements of both traditional Japanese dance as well as that most likely attributable to the Ryukyu. Whatever the genre, I thoroughly enjoyed the slow-motion, expressionless dancers in their splendid costumes.

Next we fly to Fukuoka, and then catch the express train to Nagasaki. We will spend three nights at a famous ryokan, our first chance to relax for more than one night in the same hotel.


Ted

15 Mar 2010