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So I haven't blogged in a few days so I'm just going to cover Okinawa in one -possibly longer than usual- post!
Okinawa Aquarium day!
So it's actually the next day as I was so tired when I got back! Another long day!
And expensive...but good!
Took around 3 hours to get there but worth it!
The aquarium was in this Ocean Expo Park,where there was a good amount of free things to see. But I'll talk about that later.
The aquarium was cool, lots of things to see, it was all about Okinawa and what ocean life they have here so it was educational as well!
There was a good section on sharks, where they had a tank of various sharks. Then there was all the other parts like coral life, coastal fish and the deep sea part where they had pressurised ranks. Some tanks seee pitch black in a darkened room with only UV light so you could see the coral lit up in these neon colours.
Back outside I headed to the manatee section. I love those sea cows. Sometimes I think they're my spirit animal for me in the morning! They're so chill. Next to them there was the turtles. They gave acess to the beach where turtles would lay their eggs. Various different types lived in a tank that had its own mini beach. Then it was time for the dolphin show! It was a very good show, with the Dolphins showing off their many cool tricks like 'singing', jumps and various other tricks. I managed to just catch the educational divers show - which I understood none of- before having to leave for Naha.
I had my flight for 5:35pm so I decided to go to Itoman and go to the Okinawa Peace Memorial Park.
Going through the museum was hard. Going through the first part was ok. Since I can't read Japanese, but there was a lot of English translation. It thought you about how the tension between Japan and China had been increasing. Then when WW2 started, Japan saw this as an opportunity to increase its land space so started invading other countries. Basically they started pissing people off. Increasing the U.S. Then other they bombed Pearl Harbour and everything went to hell.
US decided that the little island of Okinawa would be its jumping point onto mainland Japan. But they didn't account for the Japanese stubbornness and resilience.
In what became know as the 'Typhoon of Steel', a war raged on the small island for almost 3 months, causing the loss of 200,000 lives. Most of these were civilians. The U.S. bombing was relentless, so severe, it reshaped the island. Fifty years later and there is still lots of shells out there. They believe that it will take another fifty to truly clean them up. Then I moved to the next section. Where there was a video played on loop. And it was graphic. People being killed, dead people, people jumping off the cliffs to their deaths (where the museum is next too), bodies blown apart, a child burned alive, corpses, and some parts even worse. I struggled to hold it together then, but I did.
The next section told of the atrocities done by the Japanese army to the people of Okinawa. Not only did they force them to live like main-land Japan, but they became so controlling that if anyone was heard speaking local dialect, they were killed.
The U.S. Army took the central Japanese base in the middle of Okinawa, forcing some to go up North, the rest South. Many had been evacuated to the North already, but there was still plenty in central Okinawa. But they were all forced to leave their homes and most ended up having to go South. The ones in the north were pushed up into the mountains, but the U.S. bombardment continued, it caused so much damage that the mountains were reformed.
But down south was worse. The Japanese army and the locals took to hiding in naturally formed caves - which is where the locals would bury their dead. The caves were huge, many had smaller caves that wound into the cliffs and into other caves. They hid in there in weeks, if they dared to go out they would be killed. Soon the food started running out so the army just took from locals.
But it was the next room where I ended up cracking. The testimonies.
Every one I read was heartbreaking. Too horrific, brutal and graphic to post on here. But it was first hand accounts of the horror that happened during the 90 days of the 'Typhoon of Steel'. People seeing their whole families killed, people having their young children taken by the army and killed, the mass 'suicides' that the locals were coerced into. More people survived that was written in those books because what some went though was just too hellish to tell again.
Outside the museum. They had hundreds of blocks of rock with each name of the 200,000 people that died. I looked at one block and realised that these were entire families.
Then I left. Not only did I have a plane to catch, but I felt my heart was breaking just being near those cliffs.
So I made me way back to Naha, hopped on the plane, and made my way to Fukuoka! (Pronounced Fu•ku•o•ka)
- comments
Aunt Spider It's good that records are kept of this and we can learn and be moved by people's experiences of living through what is now history (I've just learned something by reading your post). Thank you for blogging in such depth.
Gail Made me cry just reading your blog! Like Laura, this is a bit of history I knew little about. It is shocking just how brutal man can be. You write very movingly about this. I am proud to be your mum xx
Hilary I didn't know much about Okinawa so have had a look and it seems the suicides were largely forced upon the population by the Japanese themselves. Was this put across in the museum?
K-to-the-D-to-the-S Really enjoying reading your blog!Gave you tried any fermented fish yet?Can't believe your blog is making me do sums.Look after yourself kidda.xx