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“the highlight of my trip to Japan so far” |
After the festivities of the Xmas party I managed to make my 6am shinkansen for the 4 hour trip down to Hiroshima. Having set my alarm to ensure that I didn’t miss my stop and end up in Hakata (situated on Kyushu, the southern most island of Japan – a mistake made by Lawro and Cooper), I was greeted at the station by my friend Dan who is living and working as a teacher down there.
It was great to see a friendly face and have a knowledgeable guide of the area. Our first stop after breakfast was at the A-bomb dome. This is the site directly over which the bomb exploded on 6 August 1945. We then walked on a little further to the Peace Memorial Park which contains numerous memorials dedicated to victims of the bomb. It is also the site of the Children’s Peace Memorial which was inspired by a leukaemia victim called Sadako. She is remembered for trying to fold 1000 paper cranes in the belief that she would be cured. The site now has hundreds of brightly coloured cranes and is pretty spectacular. We also took a wander round the Peace Memorial Museum which contains lots of items recovered from Ground Zero and eyewitness accounts. It also contains a number of exhibits expressing strong anti nuclear arguments.
In the evening we headed to the island of Miyajima. This island is most famous for it’s floating torii (Shinto shrine gate) and is said to be one of the top 3 most photographed tourist attractions in Japan. It was easy to see why. I literally took hundreds of photos of it! We visited at night for the purpose of watching a Japanese son et lumiere depicting the history of the shrine and the island. What was most spectacular is that the images were projected onto a wall of water which had been forced up from the sea.
We returned to Miyajima in the morning to be greeted by numerous deer that roam freely round the island. It was interesting to see the place during the day, as this time the tide was in and the torii looked as if it actually was floating. We also decided to hike to the top of Mount Misen, home to numerous monkeys and one of the best view points from the island. Fortunately Dan agreed that we should cut out the hard part by taking the ropeway up – I was not prepared to make the same mistake as when we went to Mount Takao! But the weather was so beautiful I still managed to break a sweat from the rest of the hike which was a pretty strenuous climb.
Half way up we reached a giant pot which is said to have been used by a Buddhist saint and has been kept simmering for over 1200 years. The flame is kept lit by the monks and was used to light the eternal flame that we saw in the Peace Memorial Park. The hike was definitely worth it when we did finally make it to the top. The scenery was spectacular and we had a 360 degree view.
I would say that Hiroshima has definitely been the highlight of my trip to Japan so far and it was a shame not to have spent a little longer there.
previous travel blog entry
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