We met our pink Willer bus at 10:15 p.m. outside of Kyoto Station. We left Kyoto at 10:30 p.m. and planned on spending the night on the bus while we traveled to Hiroshima. We knew it wouldn't be the most comfortable night, but it would definitely save time and would also save money because we wouldn't need to pay for a place to sleep.
In theory, it seemed like a good idea....only it was completely miserable.
Our darn bus driver, bless his sweet heart, stopped every hour! He never did shut all the lights off in the bus, and when we would stop--every hour--, he would turn on ALL the lights and get on his speaker to announce where we were and how long we would be stopped. This woke Kirstina and Audra up every time, at which point they would start crying and we had to get them settled down and back to sleep. By the time they were sleeping sound again, an hour had gone by and the sweet bus driver would wake them up all over again! Around 3 a.m. I was ready to wrap the cord to his speaker around his neck just to make him be quiet! Did he not realize that it was NIGHTTIME????
None of us really slept much....some of us didn't sleep at all.
At 6:30 a.m. on Friday morning, March 6th, we were dropped off that bus and onto the side of a street in Hiroshima. The sun was just coming up, it was cold, and we had no idea where we were. We were tired, groggy, and didn't feel good. All the shops were closed, and we didn't know which direction to go.
The kids all stood around Kirstin to give her privacy from the cars that were driving by while I changed her diaper on the cement steps of a shop (I know, very redneck, but she needed to be changed right away, and it's not like I had any options.). Raymond walked around and found a bus stop. We pulled our carry-ons over to the bus stop and waited maybe only five minutes before a bus came by and picked us up. It took us to Hiroshima Station, the main station for the city. We found a bathroom and some lockers to put our suitcases in.
We had some day bus tickets for Hiroshima that came with our bus tickets that we had purchased to get us from Kyoto to Hiroshima.....had to have something to make riding with that sweet bus driver worthwhile. We found where the bus stop for that bus line was located, and then decided to walk around and find some breakfast.
The kids were edgy....and not just from sleep. They were nervous. Tayla voiced what all the kids were thinking. What would the Japanese people think of us? We were Americans...the bad guys. We belonged to the country who dropped an atomic bomb on this very city and caused so much devastation and death. Would they be mean to us???
We found a Lawson's convenience store and ate some breakfast on some cold marble benches outside of a bank. Then, we went to FamilyMart to get some snacks for the day. We hadn't been in FamilyMart three minutes when one of the employees approached us with some new matchbox cars that he wanted to give to the kids. He even had seven of them. We were surprised by this, and very touched. It helped to calm the kids down about their fear of being accosted in Hiroshima for being American.
Before we left, this same employee brought out his own son, and wanted to introduce us to him. He had just turned one, and Kirstin is just a few days away from her first birthday. Raymond talked to the kind employee in Japanese as we put his son and our daughter near each other to compare their size and have the babies see another baby.
It was kind of an interesting moment. Here we were, in Hiroshima, Japan...the site of one of the a-bombings. In this historic city, a Japanese baby and an American baby were side by side, both being held by smiling parents. The two countries that these babies belong to have had their times of deep friendship and some real hatred for each other...yet, this American baby and Japanese baby were smiling and reaching for each other. Considering where we were, it was kind of a tender moment.
Our experience in FamilyMart became the first of many experiences and emotions that we would encounter during our stay in Hiroshima.
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