August 14th
The day found our lively crew embarking on the great westward expedition from Kyoto to Hiroshima. Though Kyoto may be globally celebrated for its climate accords, diplomatic relations inside our trusty road vessel, Aricato, were rapidly deteriorating right from the start. Our time at the Kyoto Travelodge came to a swift, unceremonious end after a restless night, making the crack-of-dawn rise for our marathon journey extra sharp.

Down in the lobby, a modest breakfast spread laid out for 1,500 yen per head immediately split our family into two warring factions: the ladies, who boldly went in for the kill at the buffet, and the boys, who stubbornly held the line and refused to see it as value for money. For our unspoken sin of skipping breakfast, Hitto Doraiba and I were promptly banished by the matriarchal high command to serve a seven-minute walk to fetch Aricato from parking. We served our time quietly and unbegrudgingly, pulling up to the hotel doors

At 10:00 AM sharp, with Kirokugari stepping up as our chief driver, we departed the frontage of the hotel. We had barely cleared the sprawling Kyoto skyline when I brought up a glaring breach of family duty: Kirokugari had been appointed Official Trip Photographer, yet our shared photo gallery remained completely bare. Instead of a modest pledge to do better, she chose open warfare—firing off excuses and blaming time itself. Pointing out that time waits for no one and we must perform under pressure, she snapped into a full-blown tirade, raising the tension in the car so thick it threatened to derail the entire day.

Seeing the storm clouds gather, Yodogari stepped into the role of family mediator, even resorting to flapping her arms frantically like a chicken in a hilarious bid to break the ice! BBB tempers take time to cool down, and Kirokugari maintained a face as stiff and ruffled as a vexed bird. To her immense credit, her driving stayed rock-solid as she delivered us safely to the underground garage at Osaka’s Museum of History and the NHK Station.

To save precious minutes, we hopped a quick shuttle straight to the grand Osaka Castle gate. It was right at the entrance that Hitto Doraiba and I committed the most financially ruinous blunder of the trip by buying a single stick of meat and sausage from a roadside vendor—a modest bite that instantly earned its place in the Chronicles of Aricato as the costliest street food on Earth.

We skipped the castle interior to focus on the real drama: dressing up in traditional Japanese attire on the grounds. Draped in my kimono alongside Yodogari in hers, I couldn’t help but channel Beatrix Kiddo from Kill Bill, imagining myself wielding a Hattori Hanzo sword during that epic, blood-soaked duel against O-Ren Ishii and her Yakuza gang in the snowy garden behind the House of Blue Leaves (a fantasy I’ll have to fully realize on a future trip to Okinawa!). As “Black Japanese,” we were the undeniable cynosure of all eyes, even commandeering an umbrella from a passerby to complete Yodogari’s look for a photoshoot that turned every single head.

Osaka was strictly a pitstop, so after our photo spree, we scampered back to rescue Aricato from the basement. A quick detour brought us to Ebisu Bridge to view the iconic Glico Running Man sign and the glowing Dotonbori Canal. However, when confronted with a staggering 2,500 yen parking charge, I made the executive decision to stay behind in the car to mind Aricato while the rest of the crew ran off to satisfy their tourist yearnings.

With Osaka checked off, Kirokugari pulled into a Lawson in Wake, Okayama Prefecture, for snacks and a driver handover to Tehaigari. Parked outside sat a massive, left-hand drive Toyota Tundra—an absolute anomaly in Japan. A quick bit of research revealed its secret: driving an unconverted, left-hand American truck is the ultimate status flex among Japan’s wealthy elites to announce their affluence! Tehaigari then took the wheel—a driver who shares a psychic, harmonious bond with Aricato when speed is of the essence—and rocketed us into Hiroshima.

Our next stop was the Peace Memorial Museum. We joined the long line of eager tourists, but every time we scanned our online tickets at the turnstile, the machine coldly rejected us. A compassionate attendant stepped in, inspected our phones, and revealed our hilarious rookie mistake: we had accidentally bought tickets for a date in the future! Taking pity on our plight, she graciously bypassed the system and ushered us inside.

The mood shifted dramatically as we walked through the curator’s intentionally moving design. Starting with a serene snapshot of Hiroshima before 8:15 AM on August 6, 1945, the exhibit immediately plunged us into the horrific aftermath of bent steel, raging fires, and victims desperately trying to catch toxic black rain in their mouths. Standing at ground zero and looking at the surviving A-Bomb Dome at dusk sparked deep, intense debates among our group regarding historical justifications, the paradox of praying for world peace, and whether the blood of the innocent at this site cries out for vengeance or has been assuaged.

Beyond our internal debates, the museum imparted profound, undeniable lessons that universally favour peace over war. It made it explicitly clear that the blast destroyed lives without regard to national, racial, or ethnic origin, stripping away geopolitical narratives to remind us that war inflicts raw, indiscriminate human suffering on innocent civilians alike.
The most piercing artifacts weren’t military documents, but everyday objects—a child’s charred tricycle, stopped pocket watches, and torn school uniforms—standing as quiet warnings that the ordinary, peaceful moments we cherish can be erased in a single instant when diplomacy fails.

Standing before the shattered A-Bomb Dome, we were reminded that while humanity often mocks prehistoric creatures for dying out due to a lack of environmental knowledge, total warfare threatens to destroy us through the very technical brilliance we have acquired; true strength lies not in total destruction, but in total restraint.

Exhausted, famished, and intellectually drained, we piled back in for Tehaigari’s final 40-minute push to the Toyoko Inn. She pulled up to a promising restaurant, only for the owner to aggressively wave his hands in a flurry of Japanese to inform us they were closed.

Starving, the family went on a desperate hunt through the city streets, finally securing a spot at a popular joint where we endured an agonizing 20-minute wait on empty stomachs. Thankfully, the food was spectacular, instantly diffusing the last remnants of our daily family friction.

After checking into the Toyoko Inn and tucking Aricato into a nearby lot, we held a final family council: to survive tomorrow’s grueling highway drive to Tokyo, a mandatory 6:30 AM breakfast assembly was decreed. With orders locked in, everyone retreated to their rooms for a long, hot bath and well-earned sleep.

Yours

Kokaishi