Hi all
After a great time in Kyoto, we made the short trip to Hiroshima by train. On arrival we took the excellent tram service to J-Hoppers Hostel, where we had booked a very nice Japanese room complete with tatami mats and futons.
Still suffering from too many nights out, we gave the sightseeing a miss for the rest of the day, preferring to start fresh tomorrow. J-Hoppers was not up to the standard of K’s House in Kyoto, but was still very pleasant and the people running it seemed very helpful. Plus we could cook again, which makes a change from eating out every night!
Setting out reasonably early the next day (obviously not too early, we didn’t want to tax ourselves!), we headed to the ‘Peace Memorial Park’ following the ‘Promenade of Peace’. Our first stop was the now called ‘A-bomb Dome’, the former old Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. This building was effectively ground zero when the bomb exploded 600m above at 8:15am on 6th August 1945 and has been preserved as a monument to that event. The crumbling remains and still visible steel dome are a strangely beautiful testimony to one of history’s more terrible moments.
From here, we walked through the Peace Park to the ‘Children’s Peace Monument’ where hundreds of thousands of paper cranes are on display. The ‘Paper Cranes’ created by children throughout Japan and the rest of the world, continue a tradition started by Sasaki Sadako. Upon falling ill with leukaemia in 1955 when she was only 12 years old, she started folding them believing that if she reached 1000 she would be cured. She died shortly before reaching her total and as a mark of respect, her classmates completed the task. Since then, paper cranes have been donated continuously and a monument to her was erected.
Following on from here, we passed the ‘Memorial Cenotaph’ which holds a stone coffin bearing the names of all those direct and indirect victims of the A-bomb blast (140,000 and still rising). It is from here that 100s of white doves are released every year on 6th August. Beside the monument sits the ‘Flame of Peace’ that will burn continually until the last nuclear weapon on earth is destroyed. The ‘Peace Memorial Museum’ itself, is an extremely moving and unbiased account of what actually took place and where the world stands when it comes to Nuclear disarmament (Sadly not much further along than it was after the war, just with more powerful weapons). Some of the many interesting objects housed in the museum are, a wristwatch permanently frozen at 8:15am, a clock that shows the number of days since the first dropping of the A-bomb and the days since the last atomic test (currently standing at 22841 and 137 days respectively) and copies of countless telegrams that are written by the Hiroshima government to the offending country every time a nuclear test is carried out.
It would be easy to think that all of the sites add up to a very depressing experience. Whilst they are extremely sobering, there is no attempt to apportion blame; instead Hiroshima stands as a truly beautiful city that has come largely to terms with the events of 1945 and now stands as a testament to the strength of human beings to triumph over adversity.
After a final look around the peace park we headed off on foot towards the ‘Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art’. Where there is as it turns out, a not particularly interesting outdoor sculpture park and a very nice Manga library (if you read Japanese!).
Feeling slightly under whelmed we headed back towards the city centre, stopping to look at the ‘Memorial Cathedral’ on the way to ‘Hiroshima Prefectural Art museum’ and its attached Shukkeien garden (very pleasant and peaceful). The gallery itself while not very big contains Salvador Dali’s ‘Dreams of Venus’ and works by Hirayama Ikuo, although sadly not his ‘Holocaust at Hiroshima’. Unfortunately for us the painting is on 3 month rotation and will be shown later in the year to coincide with the anniversary of the A-bomb drop. The museum brought our sightseeing nicely to a close for the day, so boarding a tram we headed back to the Hostel.
We had arranged to meet Debbie’s old work colleague Emma, later that evening at the ‘The Shack’ (a westerner favourite bar & grill) to catch up and get some food. Deciding that ‘the Shack’ was too busy, having seemingly been taken over by loads of western children we headed off to have Okonomiyaki (a kind of Japanese savoury pancake cooked on a hot plate in front of you. It can then either be eaten straight off the hot plate or served on a plate). The food was very tasty (served Hiroshima style with noodles) and extremely filling, although the addition of fish flakes at an unknown stage in the cooking process did give it a slightly strange tang! Emma, like all of Debs’ friends that we have met in Japan, is lovely and we had a good evening chatting and catching up. We finished up at Kembys, a restaurant and bar managed by Tomo (Emma’s husband) for a few more drinks before arranging to meet again tomorrow.
Not as early as we planned and slightly hung over, we headed out to catch a train and ferry to Miyajima (an island near Hiroshima famous for inventing the rice scoop: indeed it has the world’s largest one!). The main attraction of Miyajima (if you are not a rice scoop fan. Let’s be honest who isn’t?) is its 16m high Tori gate built in 1865 that sits, depending on the tide, either in or out of the water (we had decided to go when it was in the water). Having had a good view of the Tori gate from the ferry we arrived at the dock and headed towards the main temple ‘Itsukushima-jinja’. Ten minutes of hilarity then followed, when Debs decided to feed the islands resident Deer population. Purchasing the appropriate feed from a vendor, she was immediately mobbed by deer all eager to get a tasty treat. I would have helped but I was too busy taking pictures (and laughing!). Fortunately when the food ran out so did the deer as they set off looking for someone else silly enough to feed them (this time a Japanese family and frightened child). The whole thing was like one of those dreadful (yet compelling) Satellite TV programmes called ‘When good animals go bad!’ Leaving the deer behind, we spent a pleasant few hours looking around the main shrine and town. After stopping to gaze in awe at the enormous rice scoop and watching Debs in her element when she found a ‘Hello Kitty’ shop we headed back to Hiroshima.
After a short rest we set out to meet Emma, Paddy and Dan for a curry at the local Indian (not bad! Japanese Indian restaurants aren’t quite up to the standard of British ones but they are certainly a step up from the ones in India!). An interesting point of note in Japan is, that you choose the spiciness of your Indian meal from a scale of 1-50 (quite how 22 differs from 23 I have no idea! Mild, medium, hot, very hot seems much easier!) Well fed from the Valentine’s Day special meal, we headed off to ‘Sumatra Tiger’ where Liam’s (a friend of Emma’s) band was playing. No offence to Liam, but personally I preferred the very impressive Japanese instrumental band (a bit like the Deftones or God Machine minus a singer) who were on before them. Certain members of his band looked like they would rather be elsewhere. Anyway, everyone had a good evening drinking and dancing to the bands and DJ, but when the bar ran out of beer it seemed to be a good time to move on. We finished the night off in an unknown bar, said our farewells to Emma and headed back to the hostel.
Next final entry in Japan: Kokura (Debs’ old home)
After a great time in Kyoto, we made the short trip to Hiroshima by train. On arrival we took the excellent tram service to J-Hoppers Hostel, where we had booked a very nice Japanese room complete with tatami mats and futons.
Still suffering from too many nights out, we gave the sightseeing a miss for the rest of the day, preferring to start fresh tomorrow. J-Hoppers was not up to the standard of K’s House in Kyoto, but was still very pleasant and the people running it seemed very helpful. Plus we could cook again, which makes a change from eating out every night!
Setting out reasonably early the next day (obviously not too early, we didn’t want to tax ourselves!), we headed to the ‘Peace Memorial Park’ following the ‘Promenade of Peace’. Our first stop was the now called ‘A-bomb Dome’, the former old Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. This building was effectively ground zero when the bomb exploded 600m above at 8:15am on 6th August 1945 and has been preserved as a monument to that event. The crumbling remains and still visible steel dome are a strangely beautiful testimony to one of history’s more terrible moments.
From here, we walked through the Peace Park to the ‘Children’s Peace Monument’ where hundreds of thousands of paper cranes are on display. The ‘Paper Cranes’ created by children throughout Japan and the rest of the world, continue a tradition started by Sasaki Sadako. Upon falling ill with leukaemia in 1955 when she was only 12 years old, she started folding them believing that if she reached 1000 she would be cured. She died shortly before reaching her total and as a mark of respect, her classmates completed the task. Since then, paper cranes have been donated continuously and a monument to her was erected.
Following on from here, we passed the ‘Memorial Cenotaph’ which holds a stone coffin bearing the names of all those direct and indirect victims of the A-bomb blast (140,000 and still rising). It is from here that 100s of white doves are released every year on 6th August. Beside the monument sits the ‘Flame of Peace’ that will burn continually until the last nuclear weapon on earth is destroyed. The ‘Peace Memorial Museum’ itself, is an extremely moving and unbiased account of what actually took place and where the world stands when it comes to Nuclear disarmament (Sadly not much further along than it was after the war, just with more powerful weapons). Some of the many interesting objects housed in the museum are, a wristwatch permanently frozen at 8:15am, a clock that shows the number of days since the first dropping of the A-bomb and the days since the last atomic test (currently standing at 22841 and 137 days respectively) and copies of countless telegrams that are written by the Hiroshima government to the offending country every time a nuclear test is carried out.
It would be easy to think that all of the sites add up to a very depressing experience. Whilst they are extremely sobering, there is no attempt to apportion blame; instead Hiroshima stands as a truly beautiful city that has come largely to terms with the events of 1945 and now stands as a testament to the strength of human beings to triumph over adversity.
After a final look around the peace park we headed off on foot towards the ‘Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art’. Where there is as it turns out, a not particularly interesting outdoor sculpture park and a very nice Manga library (if you read Japanese!).
Feeling slightly under whelmed we headed back towards the city centre, stopping to look at the ‘Memorial Cathedral’ on the way to ‘Hiroshima Prefectural Art museum’ and its attached Shukkeien garden (very pleasant and peaceful). The gallery itself while not very big contains Salvador Dali’s ‘Dreams of Venus’ and works by Hirayama Ikuo, although sadly not his ‘Holocaust at Hiroshima’. Unfortunately for us the painting is on 3 month rotation and will be shown later in the year to coincide with the anniversary of the A-bomb drop. The museum brought our sightseeing nicely to a close for the day, so boarding a tram we headed back to the Hostel.
We had arranged to meet Debbie’s old work colleague Emma, later that evening at the ‘The Shack’ (a westerner favourite bar & grill) to catch up and get some food. Deciding that ‘the Shack’ was too busy, having seemingly been taken over by loads of western children we headed off to have Okonomiyaki (a kind of Japanese savoury pancake cooked on a hot plate in front of you. It can then either be eaten straight off the hot plate or served on a plate). The food was very tasty (served Hiroshima style with noodles) and extremely filling, although the addition of fish flakes at an unknown stage in the cooking process did give it a slightly strange tang! Emma, like all of Debs’ friends that we have met in Japan, is lovely and we had a good evening chatting and catching up. We finished up at Kembys, a restaurant and bar managed by Tomo (Emma’s husband) for a few more drinks before arranging to meet again tomorrow.
Not as early as we planned and slightly hung over, we headed out to catch a train and ferry to Miyajima (an island near Hiroshima famous for inventing the rice scoop: indeed it has the world’s largest one!). The main attraction of Miyajima (if you are not a rice scoop fan. Let’s be honest who isn’t?) is its 16m high Tori gate built in 1865 that sits, depending on the tide, either in or out of the water (we had decided to go when it was in the water). Having had a good view of the Tori gate from the ferry we arrived at the dock and headed towards the main temple ‘Itsukushima-jinja’. Ten minutes of hilarity then followed, when Debs decided to feed the islands resident Deer population. Purchasing the appropriate feed from a vendor, she was immediately mobbed by deer all eager to get a tasty treat. I would have helped but I was too busy taking pictures (and laughing!). Fortunately when the food ran out so did the deer as they set off looking for someone else silly enough to feed them (this time a Japanese family and frightened child). The whole thing was like one of those dreadful (yet compelling) Satellite TV programmes called ‘When good animals go bad!’ Leaving the deer behind, we spent a pleasant few hours looking around the main shrine and town. After stopping to gaze in awe at the enormous rice scoop and watching Debs in her element when she found a ‘Hello Kitty’ shop we headed back to Hiroshima.
After a short rest we set out to meet Emma, Paddy and Dan for a curry at the local Indian (not bad! Japanese Indian restaurants aren’t quite up to the standard of British ones but they are certainly a step up from the ones in India!). An interesting point of note in Japan is, that you choose the spiciness of your Indian meal from a scale of 1-50 (quite how 22 differs from 23 I have no idea! Mild, medium, hot, very hot seems much easier!) Well fed from the Valentine’s Day special meal, we headed off to ‘Sumatra Tiger’ where Liam’s (a friend of Emma’s) band was playing. No offence to Liam, but personally I preferred the very impressive Japanese instrumental band (a bit like the Deftones or God Machine minus a singer) who were on before them. Certain members of his band looked like they would rather be elsewhere. Anyway, everyone had a good evening drinking and dancing to the bands and DJ, but when the bar ran out of beer it seemed to be a good time to move on. We finished the night off in an unknown bar, said our farewells to Emma and headed back to the hostel.
Next final entry in Japan: Kokura (Debs’ old home)
