by Dom Joly
I wondered whether I’d maybe broken some social code, committed an awful cultural faux pas. I took a quick look at the loon. She was quite attractive but now dribbling all down her face, which somewhat offset the look. In the end I gave in and moved to a vacated spot in a more peaceful area. I was then free to watch a young American approach the crazy woman and ask her if the seat next to her was free. I sat back and enjoyed the fireworks . . .
Below me a camera crew was filming four pretty young girls, all clad in leopard-skin and, on cue, sauntering across the crossing trying to look carefree yet sassy. They had the look of a band. Maybe they were the female equivalent of the magnificently named Sexy Zone, a boy band whose huge poster looked down on the crossing? Curiously, it appeared that – unlike anywhere else in the world – the Japanese give photography a miss at home: the only people snapping away here were tourists.
I walked out through a music shop where I discovered some more great names for groups. I was particularly pleased to see that Bump of Chicken had a new album out. So did Heartful Voice with Tackey and Tsubasa. I had a listen; Hurtful Voice would have been more apt. Sadly I was unable to find any of Bump of Chicken’s work but I googled them later and found out that they were on their seventh album, so no flash in the pan.
Once back in my matchbox, I googled the Hibagon to see where I could start. There was very little information available. The epicentre of Hibagon sightings seemed to be based around Mount Hiba, 125 miles from Hiroshima in the north of the prefecture. I needed to get to Hiroshima and then get a car. I also realized that I would definitely need an interpreter. I turned to Twitter for help. I asked my followers, a random bunch, for help finding a good, interesting interpreter in the Hiroshima area for five days. Within about five minutes someone had Tweeted me that his friend ran ‘Get Hiroshima’ and could definitely help. I Tweeted them and they gave me the name of a lady called Koizumi who would be available. I emailed Koizumi with my requirements and hoped she wouldn’t think I was a nutter.
I lay scrunched up on my bed and watched Lost in Translation, one of my favourite films anyway and absolutely perfect to watch on your first day in Tokyo.
I left the hotel at dusk and went to look at the Shibuya Crossing lit by neon. Tokyo is a city best seen at night, when it gets seriously Blade Runner. I entered a lively looking counter-service place. The food was spectacular: pork and noodle ramen with a gratifying excess of chili. Through the window I watched the neon city fizz with energy and loud, bad pop music.
Back at the hotel I checked my emails. There was one from Koizumi, who was very up for being my interpreter and extremely excited about hunting the Hibagon. She wrote that she had contacts in the Hiroshima prefecture with whom she was going to set up interviews. This was very good news. I was asleep before my head hit the midget pillow. The room was incredibly hot and I kept waking up and thinking I was in some weird washing machine. Come the morning I packed fast while standing on the bed before going downstairs for breakfast.
A waitress doing what seemed to be a pitch-perfect impression of Minnie Mouse served me with a bowl of soup and some cold meats. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s soundtrack for Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence floated hauntingly in the ether.
I had to get to Shinagawa Station to catch a Shinkansen (Bullet Train) to Hiroshima. I looked at the Tokyo subway map. At first it looked as though I might need an Enigma machine to crack it but I toughened up and worked out that I needed the green line to Shinagawa. I was pretty sure that the numbers by each station corresponded to the amount I needed to pay. I pressed 160 yen and put in the money. A ticket was spat out and I was off. On the platform a mass of humanity awaited the train. This was a whole different ball game from the peaceful airport shuttle. For a moment I worried that I might be on some private penal line. The cars were full and I mean really full. Little faces sporting white facemasks were squashed right up against the door glass and it looked very tricky to breathe. As the door opened a tsunami of people swept on to the platform, all elbows and shoves, the usual Japanese politeness totally abandoned. I valiantly fought my way in and blockaded myself into a corner using my suitcase as a perimeter wall. An official in white gloves was physically pushing people into the carriage until nobody could move either arms or legs.
I was fortunate in being a good foot taller than anybody else so I could see over the chaos. On the walls of the train ads were playing on a multitude of screens. The first one was of a smiling woman sitting on the loo. She had what appeared to be a mini-basketball net positioned in the sink and she was bouncing a ball and trying to get it into the net. When she succeeded, she went totally mental and seemed to forget that she was on the loo. Next up: what appeared to be an ad for an erotic barbershop. Western men were portrayed having their faces massaged by very beautiful women wearing barbers’ smocks. No haircutting seemed to take place and the camera lingered over the girls’ bodies as they floated just above the man’s submissive face. At the end, the man walked out looking very happy and a beautiful blonde in the street stopped and stared at him lustfully.
It reminded me of being in Moscow filming a scene in which a naked woman gave me a haircut. The entire crew was so British and awkward about the whole situation. It soon became clear that we were in a brothel and girls lined up outside waiting for the filming to finish. When it did, we all skulked out giggling like schoolboys. I don’t think we did the sexual reputation of the British any good.
The final ad was brilliant. It was for a new Nintendo game called Monster Hunter. The Japanese voiceover kept shouting ‘Mooonster Hunttter’ over and over. I looked around but it was clear that nobody knew that they were in the presence of the world’s greatest monster-hunter.
At Shinagawa I fought my way on to the platform and joined yet another tide of humanity cascading into the main station. I found the Shinkansen counter: I needed a Nozomi Shinkansen as this was the super-express. Amazingly I seemed to be able to purchase a return, with reserved window seat, mainly through the art of drawing. My artistic skills being on a par with those of my cat, Colonel Mustard, I hoped that I was OK. Twenty minutes later and I was standing confidently on platform 21. Every car had its own gate and I was at the far end, car number 16. I filmed a Bullet Train coming in. They really are beautiful: sleek, impressive pieces of engineering, probably one of the most iconic sights in Japan. I had to admit to being quite chuffed with how easy it had all been. Again, I’d been warned that it was infernally complicated – but not for me. Maybe I could become a sort of unofficial Shinkansen expert? Shinkansen-San, they would call me. My train arrived and I got on, taking my reserved place by the window next to two Japanese businessmen in Wacko Jacko masks.
We were back in the world of massive legroom and comfort. I was very happy. I was on my way to monster-hunt in Hiroshima, somewhere I’d wanted to visit since I was a boy. It was all too perfect. The train stopped and everyone got out. This was even better. I had the whole carriage to myself. I sat and waited. Three women in pink uniforms got on and started cleaning. One of them shouted at me and indicated the platform in the very same fashion as the Tokyo cabbie had done.
‘Hiroshima?’ I asked.
‘No!’ she screamed.
I got my bags and got off – mortified. I’d got on the wrong train and was now at Tokyo Central, the world’s most confusing train station. What a bloody idiot.
Fortunately the Shinkansen system is infinitely more efficient than both Worst Great Western and me and I was quickly able to get on one heading the right way at the speed of a bullet.
Twenty minutes out of Tokyo and I spotted Mount Fuji. It was a crisp, sunny day and the summit was absolutely clear, which is apparently rare. I saw this as a good omen. I was going to get a second monster spot: first Ogopogo and now the Hibagon. I was feeling confident.
The ticket inspector entered the carriage. As she did so she bowed to everyone inside. The woman with the food and drinks carriage did the same. Could you even imagine this on Worst Great Western? In bet
ween every carriage was a little tiny glass capsule in which you could go and smoke. It was like a scene I’d done for World Shut Your Mouth when I’d had people in glass cases full of smoke in the middle of a park.
Outside, Japan flashed past my window. For some reason there seemed to be an extraordinary amount of graveyards by the track. Fortunately the Shinkansen had a 0 per cent accident rate, which is pretty impressive. After three hours of silent, ground-level flight we pulled into Hiroshima. As I stepped on to the platform birdsong was being piped through hidden speakers, which was rather eerie. It was almost as though the city wanted you to know that there was still life there. The Lonely Planet, in its infinite wisdom and clearly used to dealing with idiots, wisely warned visitors that the place was not ‘rubble’ but ‘a thriving city’. No shit . . .
As I walked through the station building I saw a big ‘Welcome to Hiroshima’ sign, behind which was a garishly vulgar McDonald’s sign. It looked like the American occupation was still ongoing. I caught a cab and, fabulously, the driver knew where my hotel was. I checked in and got a room on the fourteenth floor in which I could actually swing a cat. I liked Hiroshima already.
The hotel rented out bikes so I grabbed one and used it to pedal about town. Despite Hiroshima being almost flat the bike was motor assisted, which made cycling a dream. I was careful in the traffic, though – the irony of being killed in a bicycle accident in Hiroshima was not lost on me. I felt pretty certain that the Japanese must have a ‘possessed-bicycle’ monster – they definitely have one for everything else. Like a two-wheeled version of Christine it would have a mind of its own and propel the hapless rider over the nearest cliff at the first opportunity.
I cycled down Peace Boulevard until I got to a bridge spanning a river and saw the Atomic Dome on my right. This is the remains of a factory built by a Czech architect in 1915. The bomb exploded 600 metres above it and the walls and dome partially survived -unlike 70 per cent of the rest of the city, much of which was made of wood. Eighty thousand people were killed instantly.
I pedalled around the building and then cycled on through the Peace Park and up and down lively alleyways. As in Tokyo, when the sun set and the lights came on, the city really came alive. Everywhere I looked was blazing neon and gaudy lights. Old Japan built architecture of exquisite, intricate beauty. New Japan builds with neon and chutzpah. What looks drab and unexciting in the day becomes an exhilarating assault on the senses by night.
I headed for Okonomi Mura, a three-storey building filled with dozens of little places solely cooking the local speciality: okonomiyaki. Although sounding like a name for yet another type of monster, this is a kind of Japanese pancake filled with cabbage, meat, egg and noodles. I chose a spot run by a wizened old lady who looked like she knew exactly what she was doing. She cooked it on a hot steel counter right in front of me. It was phenomenal. I waddled away sated and content in the direction of my hotel. I was still jet-lagged and buzzing from the excitement of possibly ‘bagging’ another monster. The following morning I would meet my guide, Koizumi, and my hunt could begin.
I awoke at four in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I watched a very good Scorsese documentary on George Harrison before going downstairs to find some breakfast.
I really wanted to attempt the numerous Japanese options but most were squidgy, oily-looking things in cubes and my heart wasn’t in it. I opted for scrambled eggs but had a green tea instead of coffee to ‘keep it real’.
I sat down and looked at my watch. It was 8.15 a.m., the exact time that this city was wiped off the map on 6 August 1945. So far there was not a hint of this traumatic event in the air. The psyche – the ‘feel’ of this city – was entirely positive. I was curious to find out how a city dealt with being defined by its destruction. The only other place I’d come across like this was Halifax, Nova Scotia: a city that was totally flattened when a French munitions ship exploded in the harbour in 1917. Up until then it had been the largest explosion in history. I’d had the misfortune to be snowed in at Halifax once and, believe me, Hiroshima has way more going for it.
After breakfast I met my guide, Koizumi. She was a lady of about my age and bubbling with energy and smiles. She was very excited about the Hibagon hunt. She said that the locals of Mount Hiba had worried that everyone had forgotten their story so were honoured to have one of the world’s foremost monster-hunters visiting them. She had organized a trip there for the following day. Today however, she wanted to show me round her home city. I was a little disappointed: I was perfectly capable of exploring the town myself and was itching to go monster-hunting, for which I needed her help. There was little I could do, though, and I didn’t want to cause offence. So off we went.
Minutes later we were on Peace Boulevard again, where I’d cycled the previous afternoon. Koizumi stopped by a clump of trees. They all had little yellow signs attached to them, indicating that they’d survived the atomic bomb. I would never have noticed these natural ‘survivors’ had Koizumi not pointed them out to me. Maybe having a guide wasn’t too bad?
We crossed the bridge and went into the Peace Park, a large area with various statues and memorials as well as a museum all dedicated to the atomic explosion. The museum was utterly fascinating. What particularly grabbed me was the information about how and which cities were targeted. Four large cities had been chosen. The Americans had wanted the drop-site to be cloud-free so that they could analyse what happened. The selected cities were Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Kyoto. However, the then Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, had honeymooned at Kyoto many years before, and had been captivated by its beauty, so when he saw that it was one of the targets he had it removed from the list. Nagasaki was chosen instead. Such are lives changed.
Hiroshima was an important port city and therefore the target for the first raid. Unluckily for the city and its inhabitants, the skies were clear on the chosen morning: the bomb was dropped and exploded 1,900 feet above the city. In addition to the 80,000 people killed instantly, 70,000 more suffered appalling injuries. Whatever my views on what the Japanese did in the Second World War – and the fact that the dropping of the bombs may have shortened the war, and possibly saved my father’s life – this is a shocking event to consider. We looked at burnt items of clothing, molten metal and an extraordinary exhibit of the stone steps of a bank with a stone wall behind it. Someone had clearly been sitting on the steps when the bomb went off, because his shadow was burnt into the wall behind him.
I looked at a map that showed the area where the atomic ‘black rain’ fell. This stretches way out into Hiroshima province. As I’ve mentioned, one theory about the Hibagon suggests that it’s a human who was transformed by the radiation following the explosion. The radiation produced by the bomb here was not long-lasting. Unlike the stuff unleashed by Chernobyl, which has a half-life of about thirty years, almost all radiation in Hiroshima dissipated within six days. Was it possible that in those six days something had somehow been so heavily irradiated that it had mutated into the Hibagon? This kind of story is very common in Japan (Godzilla was ‘created’ in much the same way) but it seemed pretty unlikely. Maybe it was less spectacular than some glowing green radiation monster? Maybe it was some form of deformed beast, a bastard product of some radiated animal? I had no idea but it was intriguing and I could find out a lot more the following day.
We left the museum and walked around the park. In its centre was a huge bell that you could ring using a pole suspended on ropes. This was a memorial bell for all the victims of the bomb. I pulled back the pole and gave the bell a hefty thwack. The peal resonated deep and long around the park. I stood there for a second absorbing the shock waves and thinking about my father. I wished he’d been a proper dad. Moving on, we reached the Atomic Dome that I’d cycled round the day before. It was right by the T-shaped bridge that had been the precise mark for the bomb, though wind had pushed it slightly off target and therefore the hypocentre was about 200 yards away directly over a hospital.
Our atomic tourism over, we hopped on a boat to Miyajima, an island in Hiroshima Bay and home to one of the most famous shrines in Japan. As we put-putted through the city Koizumi told me that I should call her Naoko, as Koizumi was her surname.
It was a gorgeous day so we stood on deck to have a look at the oyster-shucking machines on the bank. In hindsight this was probably a mistake as we went under four or five very low bridges and Naoko had a mini-heart attack every time, thinking we were going to hit them. As we approached each bridge she’d scream, ‘Dom-San, get down!’ and then pull me to the floor in a slightly hysterical manner. If bridges freaked her out, I wasn’t sure she was of the right temperament to go monster-hunting with me.
As we left the river and entered the bay proper the boat roared across the delta to the island. Once docked, we meandered through the streets of the tiny town in the direction of the shrine. The builders had sunk the posts of a huge red gate deep into the seabed so it appeared to be floating. It was rather soothing to see something old and cultural after the shock of the new of my first couple of days in Japan. Naoko wanted to show me the temple. You had to give a financial donation to do so and the first thing we saw when we entered was an entire corridor of colourfully decorated sake barrels. Life is good if you’re a monk. We climbed up through exquisite ornamental gardens on the way to the cable car. I wanted to get right to the top of the mountain for a view over Hiroshima. Naoko kept trying to put me off and eventually admitted that she prayed for bad weather when bringing clients here as the climb after the cable car was quite arduous and she was lazy.
Once off the cable car we started to walk. As we did so, Naoko filled me in on what she’d done so far to organize a Hibagon hunt. She told me that she’d contacted the Mount Hiba district council and that they were very excited about our visit as there hadn’t been much press interest lately.