Clean, orderly, and civilized like Switzerland. Vast, colorful, and lively like New York City. Filled with history, traditions, and great food like Italy. The perfect blend, Tokyo is intense. Each district or ‘special ward’ has so much to offer one would need to spend weeks in each one in order to experience it all. Tokyo is not just another ‘cool’ city; it is the city, and the most interesting, intriguing and stupefying I have ever visited in my life, not to mention my favorite.

View of Tokyo with Mount Fuji in the back

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When planning our honeymoon, we were hesitant about visiting Hiroshima. We were both intrigued by it but didn’t know if it was really worth the visit, considering we didn’t have much time. So I asked a dear Japanese friend of mine who encouraged us to go by saying that, and I’m paraphrasing here, it is important to see the scars Japan still has not only on its people but also on its land. The word scar struck me at first, but of course she was right. Japan is the first and only country in the world that has been atomic bombed, and although this is no reason to be proud, I believe its outcome has greatly contributed to uplifting the Japanese spirit I so much admire and felt in this city of hope.

“War is the work of man. War is destruction of human life. War is death. To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future. To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear war. To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace”, His Holiness the Pope John Paul II on February 25, 1981 at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

I think the best adjective to describe Hiroshima is bittersweet. This is exactly how I felt when I laid my eyes on its people, its, streets, its monuments, the A-bomb Dome. Continua a leggere→