A Moving Day

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Fukuyama-jo from the train

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We arrived in Hiroshima from Kobe having taking a 1hr 20min ride on the Shinkansen. The first thing on our agenda was to visit the PeacePark. A Y150 tram ride took us right to the A-Bomb Dome, the remains of a building (Genbaku Dome) near the site of the hypocentre. Only a skeleton of the building remains and it has been made a World Heritage site, to serve as a reminder of what happened.

The T-shaped Aioi Bridge was used as a target by the plane that dropped the atomic bomb. We left the peace memorial and took the bridge across to Peace Memorial Park. The Park is a memorial to the horrors of the atomic bomb and is there to promote peace around the world. We rang the peace bell and made our way over to the Children’s Peace Monument. It is a monument to Sadako who died of leukemia 10 years after the bombing of Hiroshima.  She became a legend after her death and the story of her trying to fold a thousand paper cranes in the belief that she would be healed. She managed to fold 644 cranes before dying and her school finished the rest. Schools from all over Japan send boxes of cranes there every year.

A-Bomb Dome

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Once all the nuclear arms in the world have been destroyed the Flame of Peace will be put out. This flame is near the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, which has memoirs from some victims and video displays that portray the aftermath of the bomb. It was very moving.

A hard hitting exhibition was at the Peace Memorial Museum. It was very comprehensive and covered the bombing, information on nuclear weapons, information about Hiroshima’s peace efforts and items from the bombing. The latter part of the exhibit really brought home what happened. We saw burnt clothing, a step with someone’s shadow burnt onto it, a child’s finger and skin that their mother had kept… basically it was mind boggling what had been inflicted on the city and its people.

Sean ringing the peace bell

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After making it through Museum and Park we sorted ourselves out with some noodles then headed off to the Hiroshima Castle. The outside of the castle was different to the rest of the castles we had seen in that it had a brown, wood outside instead of being white and generally looked cool. We didn’t go inside because we were a bit castled-out but took a few pictures of the outside before heading off to where we thought a train station, in order to see Miyajima Island.

As it turned out we were headed in a slightly wrong direction and although we found the railway line, we couldn’t find the train station. We should’ve just headed back to Hiroshima Station!  Instead we ended up with tired feet and once we were back at Hiroshima Station, we really couldn’t be bothered heading out to Miyajima. It’s definitely on our list to do next time we’re here because it’s meant to be one of the most beautiful spots in Japan. Grabbing a couple of large chu-hi cans we jumped onto the Shinkansen back to Kobe.