Harry Pears

Wednesday 13th Feb 2008

Early start. Very early. 5.30, train leaves at 6.45. It was a very sad goodbye as we all waved to our host families while boarding a local train for a short journey. Get off, next train. We were on this one for slightly longer, but we soon got off and onto another bullet train. Each of us was given 1000yen to buy lunch and all bar two went to McDonalds. Finally, western food that didn’t have rice or fish somewhere in it!
We then hopped onto a tram heading to Hiroshima Peace Park. There are a surprising amount of memorials scattered around the park all for different groups of people; children, unknown bodies and then an amazing one for Sadako Sasaki (the young girl behind the 1000 origami cranes).
After hanging up our 1000 cranes we ventured onto the very moving A-Bomb museum.
We then caught the tram, then a bus, then walked to reach our hostel for the night. The walk was up a mountain… not the best walk I’ve ever done; with one rucksack and one holdall slung over my shoulders, I trudged on up. However, that was the least of our worries. The girl who had fainted earlier on in the trip was hyperventilating when we reached the top of the mountain with a reassuring voice from her best friend trying to keep her calm.
About half an hour later, she was still trying to calm down, going in and out of consciousness, when two boys ‘accidentally’ fell into a window, smashing it into hundreds of sharp pieces. Although it was an accident to smash the window, I don’t think it was an accident that the boys were trying to have sex with each other. Luckily the only injury was a cut on the back of one of the boys hands.
Later we discover that an ambulance has arrived and the girl who had just recovered from hyperventilation to take her for a few tests. Fortunately, so was perfectly fine.

Thursday 14th Feb 2008

St. Valentines day, how fun. Actually, it was. Even though I didn’t do what I was going to do, it doesn’t matter. More trains, these were actually fun though, we were surfing! Well… kind of, anyway. Then a 10 minute ferry journey to Miyajima island which had breathtaking views. This island was very odd because it belong to a Goddess or something, and you weren’t allowed to die on it; if you were dying / about to die, then you had to be quickly moved to the mainland. We looked around a shrine then most of the group went to Mt. Misen. We didn’t make it though. Most of the group that went up left about 7 of us and 1 teacher and went of faster because we seemed to be dawdling. Then one boy from our lot (the slower lot) went on ahead a bit and fell about 2M and ‘sprained his ankle’ which he seemed to make out it was a lot worse than it actually was. That kind of spoilt the walk for us because we had to turn around as we wouldn’t have time to finish the circuit with his bad ankle. Except we would have because 4 people from the other group got lost so we had to wait about 2 hours for them to turn up. One of the teachers ran around the walk and couldn’t find them so they called in officials. Just as the helicopter was arriving, the 3 girls and 1 boy stroll in through the door of the waiting room.
We were now running very late so didn’t arrive at the Kobe Hotel until about 8. We had to go on various trains and walk a fair way until we reached the rather luxurious, in comparison to the youth hostels, hotel. We dumped our stuff in our rooms and waited ages for the lift to get down to dinner because some clever people decided to press every button multiple times.

Friday 15th Feb 2008

There was probably a train somewhere in here, I really can’t remember. We went to Kobe Earthquake museum, which in actual fact wasn’t an earthquake museum, and saw a really cool 3D short film about a… leaf! As well as stuff about the 1995 earthquake. Train to somewhere, buy lunch, more western food! Walk to Himeji castle. This was once a ninja castle or something I think with great views from the top floor. It was incredibly hard to walk up all the steps in the crap slippers they provided though. We then walked to the train station, caught a train, walked to hotel, dumped some stuff (including my inflatable penguin Pokémon!!) then walked to Kobe docks. Legendary time shopping and just generally going hyper. Back to hotel, dinner, pack, bed. What a short day

Saturday 16th Feb 2008

This was the longest day of my life, literally. Wake at 3.30, leave hotel at 4.15. Eat some of the awful packed breakfast provided by the hotel. Wait at the train station for 10 minutes until it opened, catch the first train out. We were aiming to be at the airport for 7.30 ( ). Wait at the next station for 20 minutes, drink canned, hot, sweet coffee. Eat some more of the packed breakfast on the next train. I think there was a third train as well. Arrive at the airport on time, wait around for 2 hours. 12 and a half hour fun-filled plane journey ahead of us! We had three meals on the plane, so far that made four since I had been awake. All of this time it had also been daylight. Leave Heathrow at about 2.30 on a bus. I was surprisingly hyper for some reason. I got to sleep for about 5 minutes… then I got prodded in the eye to wake me up, just for the fun of it I presume.
Get to school at about 4.45, meet parents, go home, give gifts, eat fifth meal since having a proper sleep, sun sets for the first time in about 22 hours. Put photos on PC. Sleep. Wake up at 3 in the morning thinking it’s time for breakfast. Wake up at 5.30 thinking it’s time for dinner. Oh the fun of jetlag. I had to go to school on the Monday as well