Day: August 9, 2006

Here I am sitting down in front of this PC listening to 94.5 Love FM, a Thai radio station. I just cannot describe how much I really miss Thailand. I remember some 13 years ago, when I used to do the same. Then there was no Internet radio, so I switched on my trusted old radio and listened to songs by Tik Shiro, Jetrin Wattanasin, while my daughter Noor Farhanah would dance (she was only a year old then).

I don’t know what it is about Thailand that I love and miss so much. Even when I’m in Krungthep, I’d somehow get away from the hustle and bustle and traffic jam, and get to the banks of the Chao Phraya river, capturing sunsets. No matter how, I would always find the time to get away and enjoy the sceneries of Thailand and grasp the Thai feeling. There is always this Thai-ness in everything..the ambience and identity that is almost always absent in other metropolis. Even in Hat Yai, which most would consider an extension of Malaysia, as it is almost always flooded with Malaysians that you can count the number of Thais you would see by the road side, there is that unique Thai identity if you know how to find it, and feel it. Which is why most friends I know, girls and guys alike, will always tell me how they miss Thailand.

It has been a while since I last visited Thailand. Almost seven months now. I am yearning for Thailand now. Hopefully I get to return to Thailand in December.

61 years ago today, the US Army Air Force dropped the “Fat Man” atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Nagasaki was not the primary target. It was supposed to be Kokura, where most of the military arsenal were. However, conditions did not allow them to bomb Kokura, so they switched to the nearest secondary target.

At 11.01am, Captain Kermit Beahan, the bombardier of the Bockscar flown by Captain Frederick C Bock, saw a break in the clouds over Nagasaki and released the bomb. 43 seconds later the bomb exploded 469 meters above the city, nearly 3 kilometers away from the planned hypocenter. The blast was confined to the Urakami Valley and a major portion of the city was spared, unlike Hiroshima which was 90% destroyed.

At Hiroshima, some 80,000 people were killed instantly, while in Nagasaki, some 70,000 did.

Let us pray that Nagasaki will forever be the last city to suffer an atomic bomb attack.