banzai!

Just a few days of coming back to the Motherland, JM and Verchie invited me to head off to the island of Corregidor. JM had some Japanese friends visiting and wanted to visit Corregidor (oh the irony), and since Socs and I have been wanting to go there for some time now we accepted the invite.

I love what they did with the island, preserving as much of the history as they could so that future generations could remember and understand what happened during World War II. There was a lot of respect for those who died, and survived the War. I could only imagine the horrors that the island went through during those times. It was a bit surreal as the island is now lush and green, with paved roads leading to the various battery emplacements, memorials and war torn buildings. It is like one huge museum... but with real bullet holes, real machine gun emplacements, caves and war damaged stuff.

My friends know I am fascinated by war, but seeing the shrapnel damage and bullet holes all over the place was awe inspiring. Makes me wonder what actually transpired during the exact moment that happened. It must have been hell.

The day tour of the island was too short in my opinion. A lot of places can be explored, do some introspection, and take lots of cool pictures. We might be heading back there, perhaps to spend the night and imagine the Japanese attacking...

banzai!