OT: Off to Japan!

[RiverDog]

Later this PM, I depart for a trip to Japan to visit a couple of old friends, exchange students when we were in high school 50 years ago, then take a guided tour of the country. I'm sure that I'll still have internet access and with plenty of spare time, should keep posting with more or less the same frequency, but if I don't, you'll know why. The first leg of my trip departs this PM. I have to spend a night in San Francisco before making the trek across the pond. I'll be going by myself as my wife doesn't care for traveling. I'll be gone for 2 weeks.

One of the friends I'll be visiting bought me my first beer a few months before our high school graduation way back in 1973, nearly 50 years ago. At 19, he was a year older than the rest of us and at the time, Idaho had a 19 year old drinking age, so he decided to make a beer run from Walla Walla to Lewiston. I asked him to get me a case of Coors, which at the time you couldn't even buy it in WA as they had a law against the sale of non-Pasteurized products (Coors always has been "cold filtered") so it was considered a rather snobby beer. He charged me $4 for the case of beer and $1 for gas...for a 200 mile round trip!

One of my friends is meeting me at the airport and so I don't get lost, will ride the train with me into downtown Tokyo. So long as I'm not too tired from the flight, we'll have dinner and drinks that evening. I'll spend a couple of days with them touring Tokyo and the surrounding areas before I join my tour group later in the week that will include visiting the cities of Shizuoka, Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima. I'll get a chance to ride a bullet train with a maximum speed of 194 mph from Osaka to Hiroshima.

Just a tip for any of you that travel by air. There's a really cool website called Flight Aware that has lots more flight information than the airline websites. One of the features allows you to track the progress of the plane to be used on your flight. For example, my plane is currently in transit from Memphis, TN, to Denver and is 35 minutes ahead of schedule. At 11:15 MDT, that plane will depart from Denver for Pasco and my flight to San Francisco at 1:35pm PDT. I signed up my friend in Tokyo to an alert that will send him emails keeping him advised of any changes in my flight's status.

https://flightaware.com/

Wish me a safe journey!

[c_hawkbob]

Sounds like a great time! Enjoy yourself and travel safe!

[NorthHawk]

Sounds like a lot of fun.
Have a great time!

[Aseahawkfan]

Have fun! Safe travels! Try some interesting food while there.

[mykc14]

Safe travels and have fun!

[LymonHawk]

Have a great trip!!

[Aseahawkfan]

RD are you back? How was the trip? And more importantly, did you eat anything super tasty?

[RiverDog]

RD are you back? How was the trip? And more importantly, did you eat anything super tasty?

Yes, I got back late Tuesday the 28th after being up for about 30 hours.

My trip was fantastic, a once in a lifetime adventure. My friend from high school met me as soon as I cleared immigration and escorted me via commuter train to my hotel. Him and his wife are living in a very small apartment while their dream retirement house is being built and couldn't accommodate me, and he didn't want to drive due the very tough DUI laws in Japan as we planned on having a few drinks after my arrival. The country is not as English friendly as I had assumed, although most signage, menus, etc are posted in English. My Google translate app proved invaluable as was Google Maps. This was in stark contrast with other non-English speaking countries I've visited, especially Holland and Belgium.

One night, I went to a restaurant by myself, with not a single person inside the place that spoke English and no English menu, yet I was able to read the menu and tell the waiter what I wanted. After dinner, I left and got about 100' down the sidewalk when an old man, apparently the owner, chased me down, bowing his head and profusely thanking me for my patronage. I had texted to their staff on my translator app that the food/drink was good and thanked them for their prompt service, so apparently one of them must have said something to the owner. They've had a tough time during the pandemic and are just now easing their restrictions.

The one thing that became immediately apparent by from just walking around was how clean and compliant the Japanese are. I shouldn't have been so surprised as I now recall how at work, we nearly lost a Japanese customer that toured our plant because he saw a fly (that's singular). To give you an example, we were walking in downtown Yokohama and encountered a guy walking his mid-sized dog. The dog lifted its leg and peed on a concrete bollard near the curb. The dog's owner took out a paper towel and wiped up the urine. There is hardly any litter to speak of despite the fact that there are almost no public waste cans, I guess due to the sarin gas terrorist attack in the '90's, and people are expected to pack it out. Even though the mask mandate for public spaces has been rescinded, about half of the public still wears them outdoors and about 75-80% when indoors.

The guided tour was a bit of a hit or a miss as it rained several days, including our trip to Mt. Fuji. But by the end of my two weeks, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. There are cherry trees everywhere, including growing wild in their forests. Under most circumstances, visiting as many shrines and temples as we did would have become redundant, sort of like touring county fairs. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. But each of them were located in some very well maintained, beautiful park like surroundings, sometimes scores of acres in area.

We spent the better part of a day in Hiroshima at their peace memorial park, near ground zero of the atomic bomb attack. It took several hours to go through the museum, shuffling through with a packed crowd, to see all the exhibits. Although they might have gone a bit overboard with their examples and descriptions of the horrors and human tragedy associated with the bombing, which in retrospect was necessary, I was very pleased to see that they not only described the bombing itself, they went through the entire scenario leading up to it, including the discovery of atomic fission, Pearl Harbor/WW2, and the Manhattan Project, even describing the differences between the bomb dropped on Hiroshima ("Little Boy") and the one at Nagasaki ("Fat Man"). I was very pleased that they referred to Pearl Harbor as a 'sneak attack', which contrary to what I'd read and heard prior, isn't how the Japanese characterize it. They also did not offer any commentary on the decision that was made to drop the bomb, and they went through the aftermath, including the cold war, the subsequent treaties, and the commercial applications of atomic power, interplanetary spacecraft, medicine. etc. I hope that everyone took the time to take in the entire exhibit as it did an excellent job of putting into perspective the events of that awful day rather than simply painting us Americans as the ultimate villains.

One of the friends from high school that I spent several days with is coming to the states for our 50th high school reunion later this summer. He's extremely grateful for the time he spent in high school with us to the point of insisting that his kids participate in the exchange program. He claims that it was the defining event in his childhood and was instrumental in his subsequent career. He's currently a consultant that acts as a facilitator for American companies looking to do business in Japan and Japanese companies looking to do business in the states and/or other English-speaking countries. Growing up with us, he learned all the slang and mannerisms. At the time, none of us were aware of the impact we had. He was just a guy that laughed at everything and was fun to be around. I was the first one in our class to visit them.

That's probably more than anyone wants to hear. Thanks for asking!

[Aseahawkfan]

Sounds like a fun trip. And interesting. Japan is a place I would love to visit, though I would be far more interested in their martial culture. I always enjoyed the Samurai and their sword making. The katana is one of the finest blades ever made. I love their cinema as well. Kurosawa one of my favorite all time directors. So many good movies made by him. I do like Takashia Miike as well and a few others I can't always spell the name of. Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura are both amazing actors. No food memories? You must have tried some good sushi, yakisoba, or ramen? Or maybe some of that Japanese egg custard you see sold on the streets?

And my usual disagreement on your view of the dropping of the bombs:
Never gonna agree dropping the atomic bomb was necessary. Not sure why you state it as a fact which it is nowhere near that. Some people want to make themselves feel good with that argument. If America ever gets a couple dropped on them, they'll see why that creation should have never been made. It is a vile weapon creation of indiscriminate power and cruelty. Americans tell themselves it was necessary to feel better about themselves as a nation. Same reason they claim slavery wasn't as bad as described even though race slavers were every bit as bad as Nazis. It would be real hard to love your country if you had to admit they have done evil on the same level as Nazis and other vile groups we historically vilify, but they have and it's documented historically. Personally I feel it's an immature way to look at history. If you are a nation of any power long enough, you will have done a lot of good and evil in the world because humans do a lot of good and evil.

When I look at the bomb, I look at it more as they had this device they created in competition against other nations trying to create a similar weapon and they used it because they weren't quite sure what it would do and they wanted to flex American power as America at one point in time was win at all costs, which is why we used poison gas, nuclear bombs, carpet bombing, machine guns, and the like to shred humans. We're pretty nice in victory, which does put us above many nations who are cruel in victory. But we'll do what we gotta do to win and it's rarely very kind as war is not kind. We do like to test weapons during war to see what happens in real use regardless of the effect. We've tested everything from nuclear weapons to bioweapons to chemical weapons to incendiary weapons on opponents. That's why I have never thought of America as much I love it as a kind nation. Generous and helpful at times, but not particularly kind. We aim to win in all things and we compete hard in everything. Being content and kind is not a part of the American nature. We weren't built to be that way and it is not our character. We were raised to be competitive, driven, and to win the game whatever that game may be, sometimes to the point of unhealthy obsession. War is the ultimate game that you cannot lose of the consequences can be dire. America dropped the bomb because they could and they wanted to win regardless of the cost, moral considerations were overridden by competitive drive to win.

[RiverDog]

No food memories? You must have tried some good sushi, yakisoba, or ramen? Or maybe some of that Japanese egg custard you see sold on the streets?

I've had sushi before and didn't care for it. I did like the noodle dishes, but much of the main courses mostly seemed to be fried, which I try to shy away from. I did drink some saki that my friend insisted I try the second we sat down. It's a rice wine that has a tequila flavor minus the sharpness with a nutty taste. Their beer consisted mostly of lagers, of which I dislike. My taste buds have been permanently altered towards IPA's. I found a microbrewery about a mile away from our hotel, which is where Google Maps came in handy. Although the attendant at the hotel knew where I wanted to go, it was apparent that after a long explanation that the taxi driver was unsure, so I fired up Google Maps, and sure enough, he tried to drop me off 500 meters from my destination. I had to hand him my phone in order to get to my desired drop off. But I did experience a very good dinner and some very fine IPA's, the only decent beer I had in the country. The first thing I did on my long layover in Seattle was drink a good IPA.

And my usual disagreement on your view of the dropping of the bombs:
Never gonna agree dropping the atomic bomb was necessary. Not sure why you state it as a fact which it is nowhere near that. Some people want to make themselves feel good with that argument. If America ever gets a couple dropped on them, they'll see why that creation should have never been made. It is a vile weapon creation of indiscriminate power and cruelty. Americans tell themselves it was necessary to feel better about themselves as a nation. Same reason they claim slavery wasn't as bad as described even though race slavers were every bit as bad as Nazis. It would be real hard to love your country if you had to admit they have done evil on the same level as Nazis and other vile groups we historically vilify, but they have and it's documented historically. Personally I feel it's an immature way to look at history. If you are a nation of any power long enough, you will have done a lot of good and evil in the world because humans do a lot of good and evil.

When I look at the bomb, I look at it more as they had this device they created in competition against other nations trying to create a similar weapon and they used it because they weren't quite sure what it would do and they wanted to flex American power as America at one point in time was win at all costs, which is why we used poison gas, nuclear bombs, carpet bombing, machine guns, and the like to shred humans. We're pretty nice in victory, which does put us above many nations who are cruel in victory. But we'll do what we gotta do to win and it's rarely very kind as war is not kind. We do like to test weapons during war to see what happens in real use regardless of the effect. We've tested everything from nuclear weapons to bioweapons to chemical weapons to incendiary weapons on opponents. That's why I have never thought of America as much I love it as a kind nation. Generous and helpful at times, but not particularly kind. We aim to win in all things and we compete hard in everything. Being content and kind is not a part of the American nature. We weren't built to be that way and it is not our character. We were raised to be competitive, driven, and to win the game whatever that game may be, sometimes to the point of unhealthy obsession. War is the ultimate game that you cannot lose of the consequences can be dire. America dropped the bomb because they could and they wanted to win regardless of the cost, moral considerations were overridden by competitive drive to win.

After touring the country, I became more convinced than ever that dropping the bomb and inducing Japan's surrender was the absolute correct decision. The country is very mountainous, not on the scale of the Rockies or Sierra Nevada's, but still very difficult terrain, extremely defensible positions that the Japanese could have used to their advantage in a guerilla war. The Japanese are very single minded, extremely compliant, very faithful and dedicated. That much was obvious. IMO had it not been for Emperor Hirohito going on national broadcast radio for the first time ever and advocating surrender, the Japanese wouldn't have given up even after the atomic bomb attacks and would have resisted for decades. Hirohito was profoundly influenced by the two atomic bomb attacks, fearing that it would mean the end to the entire Japanese race if they did not capitulate. And given the attitude of US populace at the time, there was no way that we would have settled for anything less than unconditional surrender (even though we did grant one condition: That the Japanese be able to keep their emperor.)

During our trip to Hiroshima, I had mentioned to some of our tour participants an incident that I had recalled after having watched a documentary featuring Paul Tibbits, the commander of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and the commanding officer of the squadron assigned to the two missions. In the documentary, 10-15 years after the bombing and while at conference, he had said that he was approached by 'a Japanese fellow' more or less at random. The Japanese fellow was Mitsuo Fuchida, the commander of the squadron of fighter/bombers that attacked Pearl Harbor. Here's what Fuchida told Tibbits:

In 1959, Fuchida was among a group of Japanese visiting the tour of U.S. Air Force equipment given by General Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Fuchida recognized Tibbets and had a conversation with him. Tibbets said to Fuchida that "[y]ou sure did surprise us [at Pearl Harbor]" in which he replied "what do you think you did to us [at Hiroshima]?" Fuchida further told him that:

You did the right thing. You know the Japanese attitude at that time, how fanatic they were, they'd die for the Emperor ... Every man, woman, and child would have resisted that invasion with sticks and stones if necessary ... Can you imagine what a slaughter it would be to invade Japan? It would have been terrible. The Japanese people know more about that than the American public will ever know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuo_Fuchida

He likely knows more about the Japanese people at that time than you or me do.

[Aseahawkfan]

After touring the country, I became more convinced than ever that dropping the bomb and inducing Japan's surrender was the absolute correct decision. The country is very mountainous, not on the scale of the Rockies or Sierra Nevada's, but still very difficult terrain, extremely defensible positions that the Japanese could have used to their advantage in a guerilla war. The Japanese are very single minded, extremely compliant, very faithful and dedicated. That much was obvious. IMO had it not been for Emperor Hirohito going on national broadcast radio for the first time ever and advocating surrender, the Japanese wouldn't have given up even after the atomic bomb attacks and would have resisted for decades. Hirohito was profoundly influenced by the two atomic bomb attacks, fearing that it would mean the end to the entire Japanese race if they did not capitulate. And given the attitude of US populace at the time, there was no way that we would have settled for anything less than unconditional surrender (even though we did grant one condition: That the Japanese be able to keep their emperor.)

During our trip to Hiroshima, I had mentioned to some of our tour participants an incident that I had recalled after having watched a documentary featuring Paul Tibbits, the commander of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and the commanding officer of the squadron assigned to the two missions. In the documentary, 10-15 years after the bombing and while at conference, he had said that he was approached by 'a Japanese fellow' more or less at random. The Japanese fellow was Mitsuo Fuchida, the commander of the squadron of fighter/bombers that attacked Pearl Harbor. Here's what Fuchida told Tibbits:

In 1959, Fuchida was among a group of Japanese visiting the tour of U.S. Air Force equipment given by General Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Fuchida recognized Tibbets and had a conversation with him. Tibbets said to Fuchida that "[y]ou sure did surprise us [at Pearl Harbor]" in which he replied "what do you think you did to us [at Hiroshima]?" Fuchida further told him that:

You did the right thing. You know the Japanese attitude at that time, how fanatic they were, they'd die for the Emperor ... Every man, woman, and child would have resisted that invasion with sticks and stones if necessary ... Can you imagine what a slaughter it would be to invade Japan? It would have been terrible. The Japanese people know more about that than the American public will ever know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuo_Fuchida

He likely knows more about the Japanese people at that time than you or me do.

The view that the Japanese were all of one mind is a false one fabricated by Americans looking to justify the dropping of the bombs: https://redflag.org.au/article/japanese-anti-war-resistance-during-wwii

Using anecdotal evidence by a single Japanese man to justify a viewpoint is typical American propaganda to paint the nation as not having done a very vile act. One man doesn't speak for a whole nation, not even the Emperor. Nations are many people with many different viewpoints.

This is a moral question about the killing of innocents including children. There is no justification. You will never win this argument. If there is a God in Heaven, dropping the bomb is a trip to Hell for mass murder. It was a purely evil act that people like yourself attempt to justify for reasons I cannot fathom. I don't know why you try to justify the death of innocents under the claim of saving others. That type of thinking is purely fabricated. Dropping a nuclear weapon on a nation is an evil act using a weapon you know to be indiscriminate in its destruction versus using men volunteering as soldiers to engage in warfare who can use more discriminating means of warfare to assure they do not randomly kill innocents.

As far as practical reasons we did not have to drop the bomb:

1. Japan is an island. You could have cut them off from energy and imports until they gave up. One of the major reasons they attacked Pearl Harbor was because we were moving to block their energy. If we had been intent on blocking their energy and supplies, we could have cut them off over time. Japan was not a very self-sufficient nation. That is why there is no factual support for your assertion because nothing else was tried and thus no one will know.

2. Their population is smaller than America and thus would not have posed a serious threat to invasion or damaging America in any long-term manner. They were greatly outmanned and would have come on hard times trying to maintain a war.

You are justifying mass murder under the guise of saving folk to make you feel better about your nation. It doesn't have a leg to stand on. It's pure revisionist history decided after the fact to make Americans feel better about an act of extreme evil, same thing they do with a wide variety of acts where they use these excuses.

Not sure why your moral compass operates like this using an unprovable supposition versus the reality of the massive number of innocents killed with the use of a nuclear weapon. I truly wonder what your attitude would be if it were used on you and your family. If you saw the horrors of that type of weapon used on a human population. Humans should not need these types of lessons to know something is wrong, but it seems to be the case when a human can rationalise such indiscriminate bombing as necessary hoping they never experience this themselves.

[RiverDog]

As far as practical reasons we did not have to drop the bomb:

1. Japan is an island. You could have cut them off from energy and imports until they gave up. One of the major reasons they attacked Pearl Harbor was because we were moving to block their energy. If we had been intent on blocking their energy and supplies, we could have cut them off over time. Japan was not a very self-sufficient nation. That is why there is no factual support for your assertion because nothing else was tried and thus no one will know.

Aren't you the one that told us, perhaps correctly so, that sanctions wouldn't work against Russia in their invasion of Ukraine? And now you're claiming that they would have worked against Japan, a country that would kill their children rather than surrender to an enemy?

By 1945, Japan's armed forces were almost completely obliterated and all shipping into the country had been halted many months earlier. Advocating sanctions? Gimme a break! They were already cut off. The Japanese military was in such a poor position that General LeMay ordered all the defensive guns and the gunners that manned them to be removed from all B-29's, allowing them to carry more bombs, because the Japanese air force was no longer a threat. Instead of the box formation flown by B-17's over Europe in order to protect themselves against German fighters, they flew in single file formation, so they could drop bombs more accurately, cover a larger area, and extend the raid over a longer period of time.

In a single conventional bombing raid over Tokyo in mid March of 1945, 5 months before Hiroshima, we killed an estimated 100,000 men, women, and children, nearly all of them civilians and as many or more than were killed in the initial blast at Hiroshima, and left over a million Japanese homeless, yet they didn't surrender. What makes you think that we would have brought them to surrender in a war of attrition? What makes those types of attacks any more moral than the dropping of a single bomb?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_o ... March_1945)

The Japanese would have starved to death rather than surrender. There exists film of Japanese mothers hurling their children over a cliff before jumping to their deaths themselves rather than surrender.

Suicide Cliff is a cliff above Marpi Point Field near the northern tip of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, which achieved historic significance late in World War II.

Also known as Laderan Banadero, it is a location where numerous Japanese civilians and Imperial Japanese Army soldiers took their own lives by jumping to their deaths in July 1944 in order to avoid capture by the United States.

. Japanese propaganda had emphasized brutal American treatment of Japanese, citing the American mutilation of Japanese war dead and claiming U.S. soldiers were bloodthirsty and without morals. Many Japanese feared the "American devils raping and devouring Japanese women and children."[2] The precise number of suicides there is not known. One eyewitness said he saw “hundreds of bodies” below the cliff,[3] while elsewhere, numbers in the thousands have been cited.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_Cliff

2. Their population is smaller than America and thus would not have posed a serious threat to invasion or damaging America in any long-term manner. They were greatly outmanned and would have come on hard times trying to maintain a war.

In July of 1945 following the Potsdam Conference, the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan. Had the bomb not been dropped and the war not ended when it did, the Soviets would have invaded the home islands from the north, the US from the south. After many years of fighting and countless millions of Japanese, young and old alike, killed in a manner just as gruesome as the dropping of two bombs, we would have ended up in a predicament very similar to that of Germany, with a North Japan controlled by the communists and a south Japan controlled by the Americans. How do you think that would have played out during the ensuing cold war? Would Japan have been better off than they are today?

One thing that cannot be argued about is the aftermath. 68 years after the dropping of the bomb and Japan is a free country with a vibrant economy and a society that is free from drug abuse and crime. In almost every way, it is superior to any other country that I have ever visited. Would that have happened had the war not ended like it did? Almost certainly not. If America did anything right in the 20th century, it's their rebuilding of Japan after WW2. That would not have happened if the Soviets had shared occupation of the country. The world would be a different place.

You are justifying mass murder under the guise of saving folk to make you feel better about your nation. It doesn't have a leg to stand on. It's pure revisionist history decided after the fact to make Americans feel better about an act of extreme evil, same thing they do with a wide variety of acts where they use these excuses.

Not sure why your moral compass operates like this using an unprovable supposition versus the reality of the massive number of innocents killed with the use of a nuclear weapon. I truly wonder what your attitude would be if it were used on you and your family. If you saw the horrors of that type of weapon used on a human population. Humans should not need these types of lessons to know something is wrong, but it seems to be the case when a human can rationalise such indiscriminate bombing as necessary hoping they never experience this themselves.

To be honest with you, I care as much if not more about the Japanese as I do many of my fellow Americans. It is as good and decent of a society as I've ever experienced. I take it as a personal insult that I would rather see two Japanese killed in order to save one American. Each life is equal. I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the dropping of the two atom bombs saved many, many more lives than it took, Japanese as well as American lives.

[Aseahawkfan]

Aren't you the one that told us, perhaps correctly so, that sanctions wouldn't work against Russia in their invasion of Ukraine? And now you're claiming that they would have worked against Japan, a country that would kill their children rather than surrender to an enemy?

By 1945, Japan's armed forces were almost completely obliterated and all shipping into the country had been halted many months earlier. Advocating sanctions? Gimme a break! They were already cut off. The Japanese military was in such a poor position that General LeMay ordered all the defensive guns and the gunners that manned them to be removed from all B-29's, allowing them to carry more bombs, because the Japanese air force was no longer a threat. Instead of the box formation flown by B-17's over Europe in order to protect themselves against German fighters, they flew in single file formation, so they could drop bombs more accurately, cover a larger area, and extend the raid over a longer period of time.

In a single conventional bombing raid over Tokyo in mid March of 1945, 5 months before Hiroshima, we killed an estimated 100,000 men, women, and children, nearly all of them civilians and as many or more than were killed in the initial blast at Hiroshima, and left over a million Japanese homeless, yet they didn't surrender. What makes you think that we would have brought them to surrender in a war of attrition? What makes those types of attacks any more moral than the dropping of a single bomb?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_o ... March_1945)

The Japanese would have starved to death rather than surrender. There exists film of Japanese mothers hurling their children over a cliff before jumping to their deaths themselves rather than surrender.

Suicide Cliff is a cliff above Marpi Point Field near the northern tip of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, which achieved historic significance late in World War II.

Also known as Laderan Banadero, it is a location where numerous Japanese civilians and Imperial Japanese Army soldiers took their own lives by jumping to their deaths in July 1944 in order to avoid capture by the United States.

. Japanese propaganda had emphasized brutal American treatment of Japanese, citing the American mutilation of Japanese war dead and claiming U.S. soldiers were bloodthirsty and without morals. Many Japanese feared the "American devils raping and devouring Japanese women and children."[2] The precise number of suicides there is not known. One eyewitness said he saw “hundreds of bodies” below the cliff,[3] while elsewhere, numbers in the thousands have been cited.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_Cliff

Because they would have ran out of the means to fight. They are an island nation incapable of producing sufficient food or oil to maintain a war. Patience would have won out.

This is not about a war of attrition. The position is moral rightness.

Spend more time contemplating moral rightness and wrongness, When you use the term often as you do, know what they mean. It is morally wrong, it is evil....EVIL...to mass murder women, children, and noncombatants using a bomb that indiscriminately kills and irradiates humans. There is no mathematical calculation to measure the effect of it. It is wrong, morally wrong.

What America did was commit a war atrocity, a morally evil act of mass murder of noncombatants using a weapon they could not control.

What you post above is irrelevant because it puts the moral wrongness on the Japanese and not on America. This is the part that you are having trouble comprehending. What Japan does is irrelevant, how America carries itself is relevant. We had control over our actions, We did not need to mass murder civilians including women and children to defeat the Japanese. What the Japanese did to themselves to resist surrendering is not provable and makes the moral position theirs, not ours.

We chose as a method of nation breaking an indiscriminate use of an experimental bomb we knew would lead to the mass murder of civilians including children when we had other options available to us. We used them because a group of war mongers in the United States wanted to use the bombs to break Japan as well as see what these bombs looked like in actual war. America is a war-like nation which is why we have been in so many wars in our history and especially in recent history than any other nation. We go to war or employ military action every decade since our creation and have expanded as our means to project force expanded.

The only reason men like yourself can take the position you do is because you have not been the target of extensive warfare of the type we employ since the Civil War where the technology for carpet bombing and nuclear attack were not available. If you had to experience carpet combing or a nuclear attack watching people die on that scale, I think...or at least I hope...you could finally see the moral evil of the act. It's wrong...unjustified...and never necessary. It is merely the current method of warfare that evil men engage in who want to control the world as they have been doing for thousands of years developing unnecessary and vile weapons tech and organizing armies for empire building and world control.

In July of 1945 following the Potsdam Conference, the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan. Had the bomb not been dropped and the war not ended when it did, the Soviets would have invaded the home islands from the north, the US from the south. After many years of fighting and countless millions of Japanese, young and old alike, killed in a manner just as gruesome as the dropping of two bombs, we would have ended up in a predicament very similar to that of Germany, with a North Japan controlled by the communists and a south Japan controlled by the Americans. How do you think that would have played out during the ensuing cold war? Would Japan have been better off than they are today?

One thing that cannot be argued about is the aftermath. 68 years after the dropping of the bomb and Japan is a free country with a vibrant economy and a society that is free from drug abuse and crime. In almost every way, it is superior to any other country that I have ever visited. Would that have happened had the war not ended like it did? Almost certainly not. If America did anything right in the 20th century, it's their rebuilding of Japan after WW2. That would not have happened if the Soviets had shared occupation of the country. The world would be a different place.

You have no way of knowing if the dropping of the bomb is what did this. America committed a morally reprehensible act on Japan. It is fortunate that afterwards we are kind in victory as I have stated, which is the main difference between us and other empire-like nations.

To be honest with you, I care as much if not more about the Japanese as I do many of my fellow Americans. It is as good and decent of a society as I've ever experienced. I take it as a personal insult that I would rather see two Japanese killed in order to save one American. Each life is equal. I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the dropping of the two atom bombs saved many, many more lives than it took, Japanese as well as American lives.

I have no doubt that you like the Japanese otherwise you would not visit. This decision is a long time removed from us, but suffice it to say I do not buy the propaganda sold in the same manner I do not believe we lost he Vietnam War due to military defeat as has been sold to us for so long for some reason.

We cannot murder Japanese children and families and claim we are saving anyone using math we cannot prove. We could have stayed the hand of the bomb and waited longer for negotiation. Sufficient time was not spent waiting for surrender and the United States was not threatened by Japan as they were defeated. You are claiming the use of a weapon of mass destruction was "necessary" against a nation that was no longer a threat to America and no longer able to harm America.

No moral nation uses a weapon of mass destruction when not threatened. If the Japanese harm themselves, that is their moral cross to bear, not ours.

As a more pragmatic argument you can contemplate:

1. First, you must prove the creation of the nuclear bomb was necessary. This I believe most humans would agree is not necessary. If I asked, do we need to create a weapon that that's sole purpose is to cause destruction and mass murder humans using radiation that will burn them to ash and poison them to the point they will die of cellular damage, what do you think they would answer?

This weapon was created in secret in competition with Germany for the sole purpose of conquest and nation breaking using weapons of mass destruction. The weapon is an evil...or morally wrong...invention from the outset. Anyone who uses it has crossed a moral line that should not be crossed.

2. Second, you claim that it saved the lives of the Japanese and thus use of the nuclear bomb will lead to fewer lives lost. Why then wasn't this criteria used in all future wars?

Why did we not drop a nuclear weapon on North Korea or North Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan? Would this same criteria not be used in other wars as was used in Japan? Drop the bomb, end the war, and save their lives? This is your argument. It can be used with any war America has been in. But we do not use it. Why if it it saves lives as you claim do we not just drop a nuclear bomb and do the "necessary" action?

I know what I think which is what was seen in the aftermath of Japan was so horrifying most decent humans wanted these things never used again. They could see with their own eyes their creation was a moral crime against humanity and it is our hope that they are never used again against a human population.

3. Third, why has nearly every nation signed an agreement to not use these weapons in warfare? If nuclear weapons save lives as you are arguing, why don't we save lives by using them against war torn nations to pacify them and end wars that lead to prolonged conflicts and instability that lead to death in the long-term? If nuclear weapons are a preferable and necessary weapon to break an opposing nation in warfare to save their lives, why did most of the world swear off their use?

Are nations not costing lives by not using the nuclear bomb for it's necessary "life saving" function?

Either nuclear weapons' are a necessary weapon that saves lives during war or it's a WMD that shouldn't have been created or used in the first place due to its indiscriminate, uncontrollable nature.

When I think of nuclear weapons, poison gas, napalm, and bombs in general, they are what I see as a Pandora's Box that should not have been opened. It's only going to get worse with the advancement of robotics. If human existence were a story, the ending looks like we're on a path to an Armageddon of our own creation. It's foolishness on a scale hard to imagine. It's like these war mongering folks are alcoholics destroying themselves and those around them with their creations and behavior while we all have to sit and take it.

We have created weapons that are not good for any of us and justified their use. Even when we see the burnt and irradiated bodies of Japanese children, there are still people justifying this garbage. I wish you would look at the people you care about in this world and decide if you wish that any nation that seeks to do this under the guise of saving lives might show greater mercy than to drop a weapon of mass destruction on people.

You can't do anything if your enemy harms their own people, but you can certainly not be the one doing it to them. That's what this position is about: showing mercy and standing on the moral right side where you do not advocate or excuse the mass murder of non-combatants including women and children even during war, especially using indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction like a nuclear weapon. You cannot control it. It is merciless. If you drop it, you do so knowing you have engaged in indiscriminate mass murder.

I will not justify or excuse it or participate. I despise these weapons. I wish they were never created. They were wrong the moment they were created and their necessity is fabricated by war mongers who want to hold death's scythe over each other's neck from their bunkers and secret protective domiciles while the rest of us will have to reap the pain of their evil inventions and conflicts.

That's the last I'll say on it for there is no argument that can convince me the use of a nuclear weapon on a human population is necessary or justified. It's just evil mass murder and sickening to me.

[RiverDog]

You have no way of knowing if the dropping of the bomb is what did this. America committed a morally reprehensible act on Japan. It is fortunate that afterwards we are kind in victory as I have stated, which is the main difference between us and other empire-like nations.

That's true. But I think that we can both agree that the reason that the Japanese were willing to lay down their arms was due to Emperor Hirohito when he went on a national radio broadcast for the first time ever. The Japanese treat their Emperor as God-like, or at least they did back then. Here's an excerpt of Hirohito's speech:

Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives.

Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/key-d ... 20Japanese.

Even if you don't agree with me, I encourage you to read that speech for its historical significance as it's credited with the making of modern day Japan. It was the beginning of their reconstruction.

That's the last I'll say on it for there is no argument that can convince me the use of a nuclear weapon on a human population is necessary or justified. It's just evil mass murder and sickening to me.

I've researched this subject as much if not more than any I've ever encountered, and I'm convinced that the Japanese would not have surrendered had we not dropped those two bombs. Was it evil? Absolutely. So was the Bataan Death March, the Rape of Nanking, and hundreds of other incidents committed by the Japanese against their enemies. Pearl Harbor was attacked while they were negotiating a peace agreement with us. The Japanese regime was the epitome of evil. It was a brutal, immoral war with atrocities committed on both sides, and the quicker it came to an end, the fewer lives lost on both sides of the battle.

[I-5]

I've researched this subject as much if not more than any I've ever encountered, and I'm convinced that the Japanese would not have surrendered had we not dropped those two bombs. Was it evil? Absolutely. So was the Bataan Death March, the Rape of Nanking, and hundreds of other incidents committed by the Japanese against their enemies. Pearl Harbor was attacked while they were negotiating a peace agreement with us. The Japanese regime was the epitome of evil. It was a brutal, immoral war with atrocities committed on both sides, and the quicker it came to an end, the fewer lives lost on both sides of the battle.

Wow. I am completely with ASF on this. The logic above equates one horrific action with another. The problem is, yes the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking happened, but they are indefensible Crimes of War, so logically therefore the dropping of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are also indefensible and Crimes of War. You proved it.

There is no way to know how the war would have ended had those bombs not been dropped, and any statement justifyihng it is pure conjecture.

[RiverDog]

I've researched this subject as much if not more than any I've ever encountered, and I'm convinced that the Japanese would not have surrendered had we not dropped those two bombs. Was it evil? Absolutely. So was the Bataan Death March, the Rape of Nanking, and hundreds of other incidents committed by the Japanese against their enemies. Pearl Harbor was attacked while they were negotiating a peace agreement with us. The Japanese regime was the epitome of evil. It was a brutal, immoral war with atrocities committed on both sides, and the quicker it came to an end, the fewer lives lost on both sides of the battle.

Wow. I am completely with ASF on this. The logic above equates one horrific action with another. The problem is, yes the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking happened, but they are indefensible Crimes of War, so logically therefore the dropping of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are also indefensible and Crimes of War. You proved it.

There is no way to know how the war would have ended had those bombs not been dropped, and any statement justifying it is pure conjecture.

I wasn't using Japanese atrocities and war crimes as a means to justify dropping the bomb. I was using them to demonstrate that the war itself was an immoral, evil contest with horrific atrocities committed by both sides, and the most moral thing would be to bring it to as quick of an end as possible.

What you say is true, that I don't know how the war would have ended had we not dropped the two atomic bombs. But I disagree that it's pure conjecture. There's a lot of evidence that I've used to come to the conclusions that I have, ie that Japan would not have surrendered, at least not when they did, and that the Soviet Union would have been a player in the war.

And although we don't know how the war would have ended, we do know how it didn't: We didn't have to invade the home islands, we didn't have to settle for a lesser compromise that would have maintained Japan's status quo, and we didn't have to share occupation with the Soviets and divide Japan into a North and South ala Germany and Korea. And we know what did happen: We know that in a relatively short period of time, Japan was rebuilt and is today a very vibrant, free society with a robust economy and a democratic form of government.

So I ask you: Would you want to trade what Japan is today for the uncertainty of what might or might not have happened to Japan had we not dropped the bombs?

[RiverDog]

Here's an article, from the National Park Service, that describes the options that President Truman had in August of 1945 and gives a good, objective analysis of all of them and including their eventual target selection:

By August, 1945, Japan had lost World War II. Japan and the United States both knew it. How long would it be, however, before Japan surrendered? Japan was split between surrender or fighting to the end. They chose to fight.

President Truman had four options: 1) continue conventional bombing of Japanese cities; 2) invade Japan; 3) demonstrate the bomb on an unpopulated island; or, 4) drop the bomb on an inhabited Japanese city.

Option 1: Conventional Bombing of the Japanese Home Islands

While the United States began conventional bombing of Japan as early as 1942, the mission did not begin in earnest until mid-1944. Between April 1944 and August, 1945, an estimated 333,000 Japanese people were killed and 473,000 more wounded in air raids. A single firebombing attack on Tokyo in March 1945 killed more than 80,000 people. Truman later remarked, “Despite their heavy losses at Okinawa and the firebombing of Tokyo, the Japanese refused to surrender. The saturation bombing of Japan took much fiercer tolls and wrought far and away more havoc than the atomic bomb. Far and away. The firebombing of Tokyo was one of the most terrible things that ever happened, and they didn't surrender after that although Tokyo was almost completely destroyed.”

In August 1945, it was clear that conventional bombing was not effective.

Option 2: Ground Invasion of the Japanese Home Islands

The United States could launch a traditional ground invasion of the Japanese home islands. However, experience showed that the Japanese did not easily surrender. They had been willing to make great sacrifices to defend the smallest islands. They were likely to fight even more fiercely if the United States invaded their homeland. During the battle at Iwo Jima in 1945, 6,200 US soldiers died. Later that year, on Okinawa, 13,000 soldiers and sailors were killed. Casualties on Okinawa were 35 percent; one out of three US participants was wounded or killed. Truman was afraid that an invasion of Japan would look like "Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other." Casualty predictions varied, but all were high. The price of invasion would be millions of American dead and wounded.

Estimates did not include Japanese casualties. Truman and his military advisers assumed that a ground invasion would “be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population." Documents discovered after the war indicated that they were right. Despite knowing the cause was hopeless, Japan planned a resistance so ferocious, resulting in costs so appalling, that they hoped that the United States would simply call for a cease fire where each nation would agree to stop fighting and each nation would retain the territory they occupied at the time. Almost one-quarter million Japanese casualties were expected in the invasion. Truman wrote, “My object is to save as many American lives as possible but I also have a human feeling for the women and children of Japan.”

In August 1945, it appeared inevitable that Japanese civilians would have to suffer more death and casualties before surrender. A ground invasion would result in excessive American casualties as well.

Option 3: Demonstration of the Atomic Bomb on an Unpopulated Area

Another option was to demonstrate the power of atomic bomb to frighten the Japanese into surrendering. An island target was considered, but it raised several concerns. First, who would Japan select to evaluate the demonstration and advise the government? A single scientist? A committee of politicians? How much time would elapse before Japan communicated its decision—and how would that time be used? To prepare for more fighting? Would a nation surrender based on the opinion of a single person or small group? Second, what if the bomb turned out to be a dud? This was a new weapon, not clearly understood. The world would be watching the demonstration of a new weapon so frightening that an enemy would surrender without a fight. What if this “super weapon” didn’t work? Would that encourage Japan to fight harder? Third, there were only two bombs in existence at the time. More were in production, but, dud or not, was it worth it to expend 50% of the country’s atomic arsenal in a demonstration?

In May 1945, Truman had formed the Interim Committee, a committee to advise the president about matters pertaining to the use of nuclear energy and weapons. The Committee’s first priority was to advise on the use of the atomic bomb. After prolonged debate, the president received the Committee’s historic conclusion: “We can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war. We can see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”

Option 4: Use of the Atomic Bomb on a Populated Area

Truman and his advisors concluded that only bombing a city would make an adequate impression. Any advance warning to evacuate a city would endanger the bomber crews; the Japanese would be forewarned and attempt to shoot them down. The target cities were carefully chosen. First, it had to be a city that had suffered little damage from conventional bombing so it couldn’t be argued that the damage came from anything other than the atomic bomb. Second, it must be a city primarily devoted to military production. This was complicated, however, because in Japan, workers homes were intermingled with factories so that it was impossible to find a target that was exclusively military. Finally, Truman stipulated it should not be a city of traditional cultural significance to Japan, such as Kyoto. Truman did not seek to destroy Japanese culture or people; the goal was to destroy Japan’s ability to make war.

So, on the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the world’s first atom bomb over the city of Hiroshima

https://www.nps.gov/articles/trumanatomicbomb.htm

[NorthHawk]

Let’s say you are the leader of a country involved in a total war with an enemy who is prepared to die over every inch of land and you have two options. Option one is attack with conventional means and fight house to house and town to town. Your losses are expected to be close to one million of your countrymen, some of whom may be people you know. The other option is to drop a large bomb or more and kill a couple hundred thousand of the enemy including innocent children in the hopes fewer total lives will be lost.

What do you do? The enemy doesn’t intend to surrender and the population was trained to follow orders from the Emperor because they considered him a living God. It’s a horrible choice to have to make, but I suspect most people would choose dropping the bomb(s). They didn’t surrender after the first one and there was a plot of a coup against the Emperor which didn’t go anywhere, so there’s little evidence the war wouldn’t have ended for years had the existing military government remained.

[RiverDog]

Let’s say you are the leader of a country involved in a total war with an enemy who is prepared to die over every inch of land and you have two options. Option one is attack with conventional means and fight house to house and town to town. Your losses are expected to be close to one million of your countrymen, some of whom may be people you know. The other option is to drop a large bomb or more and kill a couple hundred thousand of the enemy including innocent children in the hopes fewer total lives will be lost.

What do you do? The enemy doesn’t intend to surrender and the population was trained to follow orders from the Emperor because they considered him a living God. It’s a horrible choice to have to make, but I suspect most people would choose dropping the bomb(s). They didn’t surrender after the first one and there was a plot of a coup against the Emperor which didn’t go anywhere, so there’s little evidence the war wouldn’t have ended for years had the existing military government remained.

I'm glad someone was able to put themselves back in 1945.

As the article I copied and pasted pointed out, Truman had no good choices. Conventional bombing clearly wasn't working. They killed as many Japanese in a single raid in March of 1945 as they did with the one bomb in Hiroshima, and it didn't phase them a bit. We couldn't beat Vietnam by conventional bombing, either, and we dropped more bombs there than we did in all of WW2. The Japanese in 1945 were at least as tenacious as the Vietnamese in 1970. If they were going to win by conventional means, it would have meant boots on the ground, like it did in Germany, and that would have been a blood bath that unquestionably would have gone on for years, likely requiring the assistance of the Soviets and a much different post war Japan.

The only option I might have gone for was a demonstration over a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific. It's what the scientists at Los Alamos had petitioned that the President should consider, but there were problems with that option, too. How are they going to record it? There was no TV back then, no way to convey the power of that weapon by setting it off over an unpopulated area. They would have had to rely on the opinions of who knows who amongst the Japanese, many of whom were dedicated to fighting to the end no matter what. If bombing was going to work, they needed to be shocked, mortified.

Then there's the political realities in 1945 to consider. The US public was not going to accept anything less than unconditional surrender, and Truman himself had stated that irretractable position repeatedly. And suppose he didn't use it and a bunch more American lives were lost. As one of Truman's advisors told him, if he didn't authorize dropping the bomb, that he should think about what he'd say in his impeachment hearing when the public found out that he had a weapon at his disposal that could have ended the war but refused to use it. The government spent this huge amount of money on the project then the POTUS chickens out and decides not to use it? IMO he had no other choice.

[NorthHawk]

I don't believe a demonstration of some sort would have worked because of the Japanese gov't of the day. In their fanatical philosophy, they wouldn't care about the losses. We see that because they wanted to continue fighting after 2 bombs were dropped on their homeland.

There is some evidence that the Soviet Union was planning to attack Japan as well. It might have shortened the war, but it's also possible that they had designs on territory and we might be in a North/South situation like in Korea or at least in Germany until the collapse of Communism in Europe.

Domestic politics just wouldn't allow that after 3 and a half years of brutal fighting and huge numbers of casualties, protecting the enemy at the expense of more American lives could never be a serious consideration.

[RiverDog]

I don't believe a demonstration of some sort would have worked because of the Japanese gov't of the day. In their fanatical philosophy, they wouldn't care about the losses. We see that because they wanted to continue fighting after 2 bombs were dropped on their homeland.

There is some evidence that the Soviet Union was planning to attack Japan as well. It might have shortened the war, but it's also possible that they had designs on territory and we might be in a North/South situation like in Korea or at least in Germany until the collapse of Communism in Europe.

Domestic politics just wouldn't allow that after 3 and a half years of brutal fighting and huge numbers of casualties, protecting the enemy at the expense of more American lives could never be a serious consideration.

The Soviet Union joined the war against Japan on August 8th and invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria, throwing a million men into the conflict. They did so at our insistence following the Potsdam Conference which ended a week earlier. I don't think there's much argument that they would have invaded Japan as they likely would have seen it as an opportunity to gain more territory just as they had done in Europe had the war not ended when it did. The Japanese military was actually more worried about the Russians entry than they were the A-bomb following Hiroshima, telling Hirohito that the US didn't have 'hundreds' of atomic bombs. That perception changed when the 2nd bomb was dropped 3 days later, and Hirohito was very clear in his speech to his citizens that the A bomb had profoundly affected his decision to surrender.

Truman didn't rush into his decision in some fit of rage or revenge. In a letter to Sen. Richard Russell, dated Aug. 9th, 1945, the same day we dropped "Fat Man" on Nagasaki, Truman said:

"I know that Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare but I can't bring myself to believe that, because that they are beasts, we ourselves should set in the same manner.

For myself, I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the "pigheadedness" of the leaders of a nation and, for your information, I am not going to do it unless absolutely necessary. It is my opinion that after the Russians enter into the war that the Japanese will very shortly fold up.

My object is to save as many American lives as possible, but I also have a very human feeling for the women and children of Japan."

It's obvious that Harry Truman was not acting as someone hell bent on revenge, that he sincerely regretted his actions but felt that he had no other choice.

It's also important to note that a few years later, when people like General Douglas McArthur were urging him to deploy the bomb during the Korean conflict, that Truman refused to do it. Truman's inaction in Korea is an indication of just how stark the realities he faced were in 1945.

[I-5]

No one here has said Truman was evil. The logic is understandable, but doesn't make the action justified to everyone's minds. You could use that same logic to drop a nuke in Vietnam. Should we have? At that point in 1945, what resources did Japan have to continue invading other countries, or even maintain occupational forces? The Imperial Japanese Navy was just a shell at that point.

But I'm glad you were able to visit Japan. I visited back in 2018, and it was a fantastic trip. I'll never look at trains the same way again after the experience riding the Shinkansen.

[RiverDog]

No one here has said Truman was evil. The logic is understandable, but doesn't make the action justified to everyone's minds. You could use that same logic to drop a nuke in Vietnam. Should we have? At that point in 1945, what resources did Japan have to continue invading other countries, or even maintain occupational forces? The Imperial Japanese Navy was just a shell at that point.

I think you'd better go back and re-read some of ASF's remarks. While he didn't call anyone evil, one could certainly infer that.

And no, you couldn't use that logic in Vietnam. The two situations were completely different. For one, the American public was never behind the Vietnam War as they were in WW2. There was no way the American public was ever going to accept anything less than unconditional surrender from Japan.

But I'm glad you were able to visit Japan. I visited back in 2018, and it was a fantastic trip. I'll never look at trains the same way again after the experience riding the Shinkansen.

I rode the bullet train twice, and I have mixed feelings about them. They're great for distances under 500 miles and if you're prompt...very prompt. They stop for just 4 minutes and no more. In that amount of time, you have to wait for all those de-boarding to get off then board the train yourself. If you aren't on the platform and board during those 4 minutes, you're SOL. I can just imagine my 5 year old daughter, as she did when we got to the top of the 300 level in the Kingdome, telling me a few minutes before the train arrives..."Daddy, I have to go to the bathroom."


All-in-all, I had a fantastic experience and left with a very favorable impression of Japan and their people.

[I-5]

I have a funny story about riding the bullet train from Tokyo to Kobe. As our stop neared, we began moving our stuff to the exit (our son was about 4, so I'll just blame him for our pace), but for whatever reason we didn't do it quick enough, and by the time we were ready to deboard, the train had already started moving again! We ended up riding almost another 80-90 miles (which was the next stop after Kobe), during which time we spoke to a very kind official on the train, who acknowledged our mistake and gave us free return tickets back to Kobe. It went by really fast, and we were back in Kobe in less than an hour after the return trip. We learned our lesson then and there, the schedule is the schedule. Lol.

You have mixed feelings about punctuality? I would LOVE it if things ran that strictly on time in N. America. I could definitely get used to it.

Another random Japan story...one night in Osaka we were looking for barbecue for some reason (like beef skewers grilled over charcoal), and not being able to understand any of the signs, we followed a group of business men and women (all wearing dark gray or black business attire) into what we thought was a barbecue style place just like we were looking for. We noticed meat on sticks being served, with plates of cabbage cut into quarters with some light dressing as a kind of refreshingly crunchy palate cleanser. Turned out it was a yakitori joint, where they serve only chicken, and every part of the chicken, including rare and sometimes raw. We weren't brave enough to try raw, but we did try the rare chicken thigh, and it was quite tasty. Of course, their chickens are bred and maintained much differently than in N. America, so don't try this at home. It was a memorable and tasty experience. I recommend following random business people into restaurants as a dining strategy...they know where to go, and they usually find good value. I've done that in other places, too, and had good luck.

[RiverDog]

I have a funny story about riding the bullet train from Tokyo to Kobe. As our stop neared, we began moving our stuff to the exit (our son was about 4, so I'll just blame him for our pace), but for whatever reason we didn't do it quick enough, and by the time we were ready to deboard, the train had already started moving again! We ended up riding almost another 80-90 miles (which was the next stop after Kobe), during which time we spoke to a very kind official on the train, who acknowledged our mistake and gave us free return tickets back to Kobe. It went by really fast, and we were back in Kobe in less than an hour after the return trip. We learned our lesson then and there, the schedule is the schedule. Lol.

You have mixed feelings about punctuality? I would LOVE it if things ran that strictly on time in N. America. I could definitely get used to it.

For those times when you can be punctual, it's fantastic. But there are times that even a small delay is unavoidable, like having to suddenly go to the bathroom at the worst time. And at least at the station we were at, they didn't have bathrooms near the boarding platform. I'd be more than willing to sacrifice a few minutes of punctuality for a few minutes of flexibility. Give us 10 minutes to board a train instead of 4.

Another random Japan story...one night in Osaka we were looking for barbecue for some reason (like beef skewers grilled over charcoal), and not being able to understand any of the signs, we followed a group of business men and women (all wearing dark gray or black business attire) into what we thought was a barbecue style place just like we were looking for. We noticed meat on sticks being served, with plates of cabbage cut into quarters with some light dressing as a kind of refreshingly crunchy palate cleanser. Turned out it was a yakitori joint, where they serve only chicken, and every part of the chicken, including rare and sometimes raw. We weren't brave enough to try raw, but we did try the rare chicken thigh, and it was quite tasty. Of course, their chickens are bred and maintained much differently than in N. America, so don't try this at home. It was a memorable and tasty experience. I recommend following random business people into restaurants as a dining strategy...they know where to go, and they usually find good value. I've done that in other places, too, and had good luck.

Good tip on following businessmen. It's probably not a bad suggestion for any country, except here they'd probably lead you to a strip joint.

There were so many things that I liked about their people and culture vs. ours: Their willful compliance to laws, their cleanliness and properness (I didn't see anyone dressed in rags), no panhandlers or homeless, their respect for their elders and authority figures. It's truly a remarkable society.