A collection of digital wonders and some other stuff.
It’s been 33 years since my childhood trip to Japan and next month, I’m going back!
My friends and their family are currently on a four month exchange in Sapporo so I’m going to stay with them before they head back to Canada.
That original trip to Japan was so formative in my life and something that I’ve been able to look back on as a core memory. Travelling is so good for broadening perspectives and cultivating new ideas. I highly recommend it.
Stay tuned for more about my upcoming trip.
The feature image above shows me in front of the Kinkaku-ji, The Golden Temple in Kyoto Japan, 1993. Kyoto’s beauty and rich history stuck with me all these years since. I can easily see how visiting such a place dramatically changes your opinion.
On August 6 and 9, 1945 the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the most powerful weapon the world had ever seen. It turns out, Kyoto was almost sealed to the same fate but was saved (at least partially) by someone’s personal experience.
Kyoto was spared because of a personal intervention: the US Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, did not think it should be bombed. This story has been told many times, often as an example of how thin a line there is between life and death, mercy and destruction. But there’s an angle to this story that I think has gone overlooked: how the debate about targeting Kyoto led President Truman to a crucial misunderstanding about the nature of the atomic bomb.
Fascinating and thought-provoking read: The Kyoto Misconception.
It’s March 6, 2012, but I’m writing this here to point out some of the oldest stuff I ever put on the web.
My “International Art Camp” trip to Japan.
Update: My brother scanned all of our family negatives including the photos I took on my trip to Japan. Here they are after the jump:
Continue reading “International Junior Art Camp in Japan”