| I wasn't sure what to expect when I returned to | | | | setting in, I encouraged my travelers to join me at |
| Hiroshima. On my first visit I was overwhelmed by a | | | | one of the quintessential of Japanese places of |
| great sense of sombreness. This is, after all, the site | | | | entertainment - the local karaoke bar. It took a while, |
| upon which the first atomic bomb ever used in | | | | but slowly everyone loosened up and began to |
| human conflict was dropped, and which in a matter | | | | choose songs to sing. That this is such a typically |
| of milliseconds, eradicated, and wiped off the face of | | | | Japanese form of entertainment, where the locals go |
| the earth, over 70,000 - (seventy thousand!) - | | | | to let their hair down, is in fact quite surprising - |
| people. Many more were to die with the passage of | | | | taking into account that this is a frightfully formal |
| time from the radiation after-effects of the atomic | | | | society. Or maybe it's just because of that that |
| fallout. As a child of Holocaust survivors the numbers | | | | karaoke bars in their thousands attract both young |
| numb me. Photographs on display at the Peace | | | | and (sometimes) old for an evening of light |
| Museum in Hiroshima - some taken within minutes of | | | | entertainment and togetherness? Hmmmm... |
| the bombing - are as painful to me as are those that | | | | The other famous and must-see sight in Hiroshima, |
| I know only too well from years of professional | | | | specially for travelers from Israel for whom the |
| research into visual images from the Holocaust. The | | | | motor car is the second most important item in their |
| Peace Museum, however, displays an historic event | | | | our lives, is the Mazda plant located at the outskirts |
| removed from its historic context, and creates an | | | | of the city, along the sea-front. Pronounced |
| illusion of Japan as victim. I didn't accept it on my first | | | | "Matzuda" in Japanese, the plant is a delight of |
| visit here, neither did I accept it upon my return. Yet, | | | | robotica and human talent. It's amazing to see how |
| being on the site where there was once such great | | | | rapidly cars are put together, how parts and pieces |
| devastation, nevertheless caused me great sadness. | | | | come together, and how short a drive it is from the |
| However, during my current visit to Hiroshima, I | | | | end of the production line to the ship on which the |
| made sure to look at the city with different eyes. As | | | | completed vehicle makes its way to its destination - |
| a city that has been completely rebuilt from the | | | | less than 300 meters! So let me testify here that |
| ground up since the end of World War II, it is a | | | | your new Mazda should have very little on the dial |
| sparkingly modern city. It has wide avenues and | | | | when you take delivery of it. |
| interesting architecture. It is dotted with creative | | | | So my visit to Hiroshima this time was not only about |
| sculptures dedicated to the subject of peace. | | | | sadness and tragedy. It was about modernity and |
| Hiroshima boasts an efficient and green tram system | | | | accomplishment, technology and fun, |
| that whisks you from one part of the city to | | | | environment-friendliness and efficieny. But most of all, |
| another swiftly, silently, in clean and attractive trams. | | | | it was about peace. |
| In order to actively discourage a dark mood from | | | | |