Japan – Hiroshima

JR Train Tokyo – Hiroshima.

With my sightseeing complete in Tokyo (although I seriously wished I had given myself a couple more days to see more sites), it was time to move on.

The next part of my Japanese itinerary would take me quite a distance down the main island I was on. Before I arrived here I researched the choices of travel methods to get to Hiroshima from Tokyo.

Tokyo to Hiroshima is about 880 Km, so it’s not a short distance

Plane – This is an about 1 hr 20 mins flight. However, add in 1.5 hours at least at each end for security and passport control and a 40 mins bus (cost about £10) from Hiroshima airport to the city and we are talking around 5 hours total. Hiroshima’s airport is way out of the city.

Then of course if your hotel is in the south of Tokyo and your flight goes from Tokyo Narita in the north you need to add on another 1.5 hours and £20. Likewise. if you are staying in the north of the city and flying from Tokyo Haneda in the south central area. That is assuming there are no hold-ups. New total time is around 6.5 ours

Total cost of flight and two airport buses is between £80-220 depending on which flight you take. An advance purchase flight is around £100. I’ve heard of cheapo flights for £60 but they are not easy to come by.

Train – An express Shinkansen train will get you from central Tokyo to central Hiroshima in around 4 hours from each city’s main train station. Trains travel at over 320 kph. You just need to get from your hotel on the Metro to Tokyo central station. Most Hiroshima hotels are walkable from the central train station. It isn’t cheap as the train ticket is around £120 one way. The advantage is that it is quicker and almost door to door. The experience of a bullet train (Shinkansen) is so worth it if you have never done it before!

Remember you can buy a JR Rail pass for 7 days travel for £217. With that I would get my trip from Hiroshima to Osaka included and all my train trips in Tokyo and from Osaka to Kyoto also. That brought my Tokyo-Hiroshima price down proportionally to around £90 so really worth buying if you are travelling around like me. I worked out that I saved around £100 on my train trips by buying the pass

If you really want to save money then you can use local trains on a multi-leg journey. It would cost around £50 but involve 4-5 changes of train and 15-18 hours of travel – I wouldn’t recommend it!

Bus –   Long distance buses do exist and the Tokyo- Hiroshima line costs between £45 and £65 depending when you book and which service you take. It is however a long 13-14 hour drive and thus takes virtually the whole day.

There are night buses leaving from eg Shinjuku bus station, Tokyo, arriving at Hiroshima bus station that are cheaper at between £35- 50 and an 11 hour journey. If you can sleep in a seat and really don’t have the budget to spend on an express train this may be an option. Not for me however, as I am such a light sleeper and really need the comfort of a bed to recover, ready for a heavy sightseeing trip the next day.

Car – Well, those logistics are overwhelming. It depends on how many of you there are to share the car cost , the actual category of car you take out, add in petrol costs and several motorways’ tolls and I wouldn’t even consider it. One way as well may not be possible with many car rental Co and if it is, it will have a high surcharge. The route however could take as little as 10 hours if you drive fast (within speed limits) and there are no hold-ups on the way.

I bought the JR Rail pass in advance and had the coupon to exchange at the airport for the actual pass emailed to me. The cost of £217 was so good for all the 7 day Shinkansen and local train trips I got in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. Hiroshima is so walkable that public transport is not needed and my hotel was almost as central as you could get. Click here for the JR Rail Pass website for more info

A little history story on Hiroshima

The whole world knows of Hiroshima for one simple but horrific event – the dropping of the first nuclear bomb in WW2 by the American airforce on the city.  Before this it was a relatively average Japanese city with an interesting past history.

So, let’s first go back to that history.

It has been around since the 11^th Century and the area where Hiroshima presently sits was a prosperous fishing village under the protection of one of the four most important feudal families in Japan. The areas was actually known as Gokamura, meaning “five villages”. Sitting on the River Ota Delta it flourished over the centuries.

It wasn’t until after one of many battles in the area by feuding families, that one of the victors decided to built a castle/fortified city here in 1593. He decided to take part of his family name “Hiro” and add it to part of the Castle architect’s name “Shima. Thus the name “Hiroshima” was born.

It expanded, despite being passed from family clan to family clan as they fought each other and won or lost. Life, however, carried on in the city relatively unscathed.

Fast forward through relative peace to 1871 and the city had grown so much that it was declared a regional capital, such was its importance. Under Emperor Meiji, from 1868, during the Imperial Dynasty period, the city grew further, becoming an industrial centre with a newly built major port and commercial industries.

The railways connected the city to the rest of Japan in 1894. When the War with China over Korea came in 1894, Hiroshima was the perfect choice to be used as a huge military base and platform to beat the Chinese in less than a year.

The Emperor moved his government to Hiroshima and he himself resided in the castle here.

When China asked for peace talks, they were held in Hiroshima itself. The city was now firmly on the map.

Winning the War with China made Japan the dominant Nation in the region and a force to be reckoned with. Hiroshima grew similarly in fortune and fame.

Not long after, in 1904, Japan went to war with Russia and Hiroshima quickly grew further to be a pre-eminent base for military supplies and equipment making.

In 1915, to aid the promotion of its manufacturing base, military hardware and industries to the world, a now world-famous building was built – the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. This was to become the post WW2 iconic symbol of a nuclear shattered city – the famous Atomic Dome building that still stands as a memorial today.

We now arrive at possibly the most well-known period of Hiroshima’s history.

During WW1 the city became a massive armaments builder and by the time of WW2 it was known to be the HQ of the Japanese Imperial Army for the defence of the biggest Japanese island of Honshu and much of the Pacific fleet was stationed here.

Hiroshima escaped the fire-bombings of the war eg the one on Tokyo in March 1945 that left 100,000 dead in one night. It was however noted for its military importance and something else was saved for use later in that year.

On 6 August 1945 at 8.15 am, a nuclear bomb called “Little Boy” was dropped from the “Enola Gay” American Airforce bomber. It detonated 600 metres above the city killing 70,000 inhabitants instantly, and destroying about 80% of the city. The explosion was 160 metres to the southwest of that 1915 Exhibition Hall I mentioned earlier

Within the year, a further 90,00 inhabitants died from the effects of radiation poisoning or their wounds. To put it in perspective, that was nearly half the population of the city.

Today, Hiroshima (now just over 1 million population),stands as a symbol of the atrocities that war can bring and the Peace Park and associated buildings remind us that it must never happen again. The rebuilding of the city from 1949 into a modern skyscraper and green parks landscape is also a testament to international help and a community wishing to recover and prosper.

Where I stayed in Hiroshima

I did my usual extensive research to get as good a deal as possible on a 3-4 star modern hotel, fairly central in the city with lots of good reviews. Strangely, for such a big city there were relatively few 4 star hotels (no 5 star at all).

The three star ones all seemed really good. I looked further into many of them and the photos and amenities I was seeing was more like 4 star ones. Japanese hotels seem to have lower ratings than a western hotel for the same facilities. I found this to be the case in Tokyo and Osaka too, so a great hotel can be had for what is a low star rating.

Japanese hotels are much more expensive than I am used to in Europe and Hiroshima’s prices were no different.

However, I did eventually settle on one that looked great, had what I needed and was offering a really good price that made it very reasonable. In fact, it was positively cheap for what I was seeing.

Mystays Hiroshima Peace Park Hotel

I settled on the Mystays Hiroshima Peace Park Hotel and it turned out to be an excellent choice.

It was an 80s’ style, 15 storey building that was actually directly in front of the Peace Park and about a 25 mins walk down pleasant boulevards from the central station, where I was arriving by bullet train.

I followed my digital map down well-maintained streets and eventually arrived at The Peace Boulevard on which it is situated.

The lobby was large and the receptionist spoke English and all was fine.

The room was a little dated (but I had seen that in the pics), but was scrupulously clean (as all Japanese hotels are), and actually quite large for the average Japanese room. Get used to smaller rooms in Japan, it is quite the norm.

The bathroom was modern, wifi excellent, bed really comfy and the room super quiet. They had put me on a higher floor as requested in my email and it actually overlooked the Peace Park and River – what a view!  The cheap price was not reflected in lower quality and I was very happy at my find.

The breakfast room doubled as the evening restaurant – I ate there later and the food was great. It actually had two restaurants.

Breakfast was large and very varied but very Japanese – I still don’t know what some of the items are, so I must look them up. Luckily there were pastries, small sausages, eggs, mushrooms, coffee etc so I was content. I did try several pieces of japanese food that looked good. It was fried chicken and something tofu like – I loved them and got more. Interesting to have fried chicken slices for breakfast but it worked for me.

In the lobby they had a cute robot. It zoomed up to guests as they entered and talked to them, raising its arms and turning like a human. It was so cute and funny.

Apparently, you can talk to it and it responds and looks back at you and gesticulates. It can check you in and give tourist advice and even had a touchscreen Ipad on its chest if it wanted to show you a pic of something. Several guests were fascinated by it and it seemed to work judging by the smiles.

Unfortunately, it did not speak English, so when I asked it questions it replied in Japanese and actually looked confused!

Click here for hotel’s website

Views over Hiroshima Peace Park and Boulevard 

The best thing about the hotel? The breakfast room overlooked the Peace Park with sweeping views down Peace Boulevard. I could see the Atomic Bomb Dome in the distance that I was about to visit and I got a great overview of the Peace Park from above – stupendous.

I sat for ages staring at the vast expanse before me and taking in the significance of what I was seeing below.

The one thing that surprised me about Hiroshima was the buildings.

It has risen like a veritable phoenix from the fire. New (well, mostly 1970-90s) buildings are everywhere. Many were 25 storey office blocks and it had a perfect grid pattern layout.

I had to think why was I expecting some cute old town – the city had been absolutely flattened in the war, as it was mainly a wooden building city. The only buildings left were the few stone-built ones.

Logical but it had never registered with me before what I was to see.

Atomic Bomb Dome 

My first visit of the day was only a straight 10 mins walk away from my hotel, along the river embankment. I was to see what everyone in the world comes to Hiroshima to pay respects to.

So, I’ve relayed already in the introduction about what happened at 8:15 am on 6 August 1945. The devastating bomb flattened the mainly wooden city but several concrete/stone buildings survived.

The actual drop point was supposed to be above the Aioi bridge right next to the Dome building but it just missed and exploded in the air 160 metres away, in the direction away from the river, behind all those new buildings nearby.

The bridge was the aiming point because it was an unusual “T” shape (still is), and was in the city centre.

So why did this building – the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall – now called the Atomic Bomb Dome or Genbaku Dome in Japanese, survive, albeit somewhat in ruins.

It was one of the few large stone and steel reinforced buildings in the city and because the explosion happened more or less above it, the downward force was able to be somewhat absorbed by the building. Everyone inside however perished instantly. If it had been a far-away side blast the building may well not have survived at all.

It was left in ruins to be demolished until some citizens pushed for it to be saved as a memorial to the horrendous event. Public and international money flowed in to preserve it – the city mayor even helped collect donations by hand on the streets of Tokyo.

In 1950 the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was established and the Dome was its focal point. It lies on the other side of the river from where the majority of the Park is located.

It is still a sombre and though-provoking sight. The exposed metalwork of the central Dome gave the memorial its endearing nickname.

You can walk around the perimeter but not enter into the building. Its walls still look ready to collapse and the differing shades of brown and pink show how the blast changed the colour of the stone.

The side that faced the off-centre blast is the most destroyed but the original height of the building was still maintained on the other side.

Rubble still lies on the ground as it did after the blast and only a few supporting metal pillars to keep parts intact show how it has been preserved.

I am still amazed at how a building so close to the hypocentre of the bomb blast survived. Apparently, its design was also earthquake proof so that again was another survival benefit in its construction.

In December 1966 it was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and today is one of the most recognised iconic buildings in the world.

Area around the Dome

There is an interesting monument memorial just near the Dome in the adjoining small park. To help in the WW2 war effort students from the ages of 14 were recruited to help in factories and supplies. In Hiroshima they also took 8400 older students to help build fire breaks in the wooden housing areas of the city. On the day the bomb dropped 75% of those youths were killed instantly.

The Japanese government allowed only those who could be verified as killed by date of birth and family to be named in the national shrine to them in Tokyo.

Locals got together and built this five- tiered memorial to those students in Hiroshima who were unknown, as a mark of respect. It is an unusual memorial shape. I spent a while walking round it taking it in and wondering what the shape signified as there is no inscription in English.

Next door is a softly flowing large multi- fountain. Do look out for these monuments and take in the significance of their construction in their now peaceful corner of the Peace Memorial area.

Hypocentre of the Atomic Bomb

So, I’ve spoken about the exact place where the atomic bomb, designed to explode above ground rather than on impact, went off.

If you follow around the newer buildings to the side of the small park with the memorials in, that I just spoke about, you will find the exact spot.

You will probably need a map, as what you are about to see must be the smallest and most unobtrusive memorials to one of the worst events in humankind’s history.

From the fountain, look for the small granite, inscribed block, mounted on a cobbled floor – a monument to the poet Tamiki Hara. Take the road directly opposite going away from the park and into the buildings area. Then take the first right and you are on the street.

Opposite the flat wall of the building nearby, on the narrow pavement you will see a small brown metal box with a sloping picture and description plaque, with silver Japanese writing affixed to the wall.

Stand next to it and read the info. Then look upwards and imagine a point some 600 metres directly above you in the sky. That will be the exact place the atomic bomb exploded – a chilling thought.

The building virtually directly below the blast was, at the time, the Shima Hospital. This was the “ground zero” point of the destruction.

It was destroyed in the blast but rebuilt by Dr Kaoru Shima in 1948, again as a hospital.

Today it is a clinic and small surgical hospital.

How ironic that of all buildings to be the accidental focus of the dropped bomb, it was a hospital.

Hiroshima Peace Park Museum    

Outside the park area and on the boulevards and open areas in front of it are many important statues and memorials -but more on those later.

The main entrance off the wide Peace Boulevard takes you up to the big long and thin buildings of the Peace Museum with another two buildings in a more traditional square format to either side. One is another Museum and the other the Conference/Exhibition Hall.

Part of the Museum was undergoing renovations and closed on my visit, hence the outer boards in the pic, but the main part was still open.

One of the first things you see on entrance to the Peace Museum is a large board showing a clock at 8:15 with the date of 6 August 1945. The date and time the bomb exploded. I shall never forget that date again as it is prominent among several other displays.

One section shows scenes of the before and after effect of the explosion and the devastation to the horizon is shocking. A bronze model of what the A Bomb Dome looked like before and after is very poignantly a centre-piece.

Various artefacts from the time of the event are on show and several do not hold back the gruesomeness and horror of the event. A military uniform, worn by a person is shown in shreds, you just have to imagine the condition of the body wearing it. A child’s semi-melted tricycle from the effects of the heat blast stands on its own.

A wrist watch, worn by a victim of the atrocity is shown in a protective dome. It stopped at 8:15, the time of the bombing.

Melted glass bottles fused together from the heat of the blast are in another show cabinet.

There are many more examples of the effect of the blast and heat on everyday items. The silence in the hall as I moved around was discernible, as the sometimes graphic photos of dead and burned bodies and utter destruction, was stunning people into silence.

The Museum can be harrowing but at the same time enlightening – who wouldn’t want to see the end to nuclear weapons after seeing all of these intense but true displays.

Hiroshima Peace Park

Give yourself plenty of time for the park area on the island, as it is immense.

Not only is it big in space but within its grounds are so many memorials, monuments, display areas and significant exhibits that you do need to read up on them first.

With so many important pieces to see it’s important to know what you are looking at and what it signifies or you will lose much of the reasoning of this great Park.

Click here for opening times etc.

I’m going to just introduce the main monuments and aspects of the park here. It is so full of statues and beautiful memorials that it runs into the dozens. Each one is significant in its own way and whilst not wanting to make light of it, there are too many for me to review concisely.

Just remember that the Park is dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives in the world’s first nuclear attack on a city. It also serves as a legacy to future peace, that the event will not be forgotten and serves as a reminder for the event never to happen again.

The Cenotaph Memorial is perhaps the most viewed edifice here. It contains the names of the 140,000 people who died from or as a result of the explosion.

The stone carved, saddle shape memorial with an open arch underneath and its telling epitaph of “Let all the souls here rest in peace for we shall not repeat the evil”.

It sits at the start of the Pond of Peace. This long rectangular open water feature (somewhat like the Reflecting Pool in Washington DC) lines up and holds the Flame of Peace and frames the A dome on the horizon.

The Flame of Peace is supposed to represent two open hands, joined at the wrists with their palms pointing towards the sky. An eternal flame rises from between them that will only be extinguished when all nuclear weapons have been eradicated in the world.

Nearby are the smaller memorials of the Peace Memorial Statue, The Prayer Monument and the large circular National Peace Memorial Hall.

Walkalong the pool beside the tall wonderfully green thick trees and when the pool ends you arrive at a small open area with a pedestrianised road running through.

To the right is a concrete building, restored from the rubble, like the A Bomb Dome. It was a shop and was almost destroyed in the explosion killing 36 of the 37 people working in the building at the time. The survivor owes his life to the fact that he went into the basement to retrieve some documents when the bomb hit. It is now a tourist info centre, souvenir shop and memorial building,

Further along to the left is the Children’s Peace Bell. It has a statue of a child standing on the bell dome with a crane bird flying overhead. You are encouraged to ring the bell for peace by the long cord.

Nearby stands sell origami bands of cranes – alluding to the fact the he who makes 1000 origami cranes can have a wish granted by the gods.

Further into the park is another Peace Bell. This one had a bell suspended under a low dome on four pillars and again everyone is encouraged to ring the bell for peace. The hanging beam is used to strike the side of the bell on which there is a map of the world. The beam strikes a plaque that has an atomic symbol, so it signifies people striking down the A Bomb. … Take that Mr Nuclear!

Yep, I did it rather self-consciously, as I had already heard the loudness of the boom sound of the bell strike and everyone looks at you.

Yet more memorials are situated around the park. A glass clock dial showing 8:15 am and the Burial mound that hold the ashes of 70,000 unidentified victims.

The walk ends at the waterfront and we have done a virtual circle and are back at the A Bomb Dome Building. These pics show the sight from across the river towards that building

The Park was enchanting despite its sad origins. The colourful trees, the lawned grasses and memorials at every turn was so captivating. It had a sense of calm but also hope when I saw many groups of Japanese schoolkids listening to their teacher explaining the park and the event. Hope for the future.

Peace Park area

The wide entrance to park has a huge fountain and a few statues in front of it.

A dominant one was of a figure representing a mother holding her infant in her right hand and another one on her back with her left hand while bending over to survive. It was created as a call to abolish nuclear weapons

Others were one that resembles a five sided twisting pyramid and another as a memorial to the pupils and teachers killed on that dreadful day..

On the opposite footpath to the main entrance stood these tall rectangular gates.

This memorial symbolizes the nine gates of hell of an old myth, there is a tenth which is represented by the “the hell of Hiroshima”. The gates are made of steel frames with tempered glass panels. Both the glass panels and the flagstones below are etched with the word “peace” in 49 languages.

At night the display is lit up and the words Peace shine through.

A model of the design, that I know today as a “Peace Pole”, was also standing in a small park to the side of the rivers edge opposite the entrance.

These poles have become international and I have seen them in many places around the world with the same design, shape and inscription.

I took a photo of the Hiroshima skyline from one of the bridges that cross over the river into the Park. I tried to imagine this skyline, in which I could also see my hotel, as a flat scorched earth in the aftermath of the destruction of the bomb. Today it seems incredible that the city now looks like this in its recovery.

On a nearby stall, I saw again those strips of origami cranes. They seemed to be sold in several places and were often placed by well-wishers on various memorials and monuments as others may place flowers.

My day was now finished and I stood in awe of this wonderful park, gazing back through its entrance.

The utter determination of people to make this a living memorial to the victims of the atomic bomb was inspiring. To leave this whole creation as a legacy of hope for the future and to remind us never to do this again was firmly positioned in my mind.

I had spent a lifetime wanting to come here and experience this setting, despite its sadness and I had now done that. Once you have seen that A bomb dome Building you can never “unsee” it again, it is etched in my memory forever,

Hiroshima Castle

Japanese Castles are not what we, in Western Europe, imagine a castle to be. As in Europe, there are high, thick defensive walls on the perimeter but here they are invariably surrounded by a wide moat – Hiroshima Castle is no different to that.

Inside, the buildings would have been low rise wooden structures rather than immense stone buildings. The Tower or Keep is more of a huge pagoda-style edifice here. The huge area it encompassed within its walls was effectively the living area for everyone who served the resident warlord.

Again, Hiroshima Castle follows this pattern.

The castle took ten years to build from 1589 and was constructed in an area called Gokuaura (Five Villages) as a single settlement. No city existed near it at the time. The then adjoining wooden construction residential wings were added by 1599. The central tower is 38 metres tall in total.

It originally had two further moats, thus its protected area was immense. Those moats were filled in, in the 19^th Century and nothing remains of them now. The present-day city sits on top of that area.

The watch towers on each corner of the fortified walls and the gateway are elaborately carved and each topped by grey tiles.

On the day I visited there appeared to be a festival of flowers happening, as there was a huge display of arranged flowers in an open exhibition area.

I had seen similar in Tokyo at public places in the castle area there – was something happening in Japan to celebrate that I had missed?

The central tower is now a museum of life in Hiroshima before the bomb hit. You can climb the internal stairs to the top, stopping off at each storey to wander each floor and see the exhibits. The entire tower is made of pine wood and to walk around it at its various levels imagining that in its day it was purely a wooden construction yet so stable, was impressive.

The brown, white and grey colours used were beautifully combined – it is such a photogenic building that I took many shots of it from different angles trying to capture its beauty.

I did get to the top eventually and walked the narrow perimeter walkway, peeking back through the windows to the inside as I passed by them.

Now the shocker …… and yet again I had not thought this through, despite knowing the A bomb destroyed 80%of the city …… it is a total reconstruction! It has been so well reconstructed that if not told so, I doubt many people would know it was reconstructed from the ground upwards in 1958. Behind all that wood, cleverly concealed, is a concrete substructure!

The wood has even been weathered to give it an aged look and nowhere did I see any sign of concrete.

Views from Castle Tower

As it is set on acres of open land with its huge wide moat running around it, the views from the summit are stupendous.

The skyscrapers are far enough away to not impede on the view and the woods of the inner area give a lovely foreground appearance to the vista. You can also appreciate how modern the city skyline is and the backdrop of the distant mountains.

I could see the hypocentre of the bomb blast in the far distance from the top of the tower. I had to imagine that despite the distance, everything that I could actually see would have been obliterated including where I was standing – I was 1 km from the epicentre!

Hiroshima Castle Grounds

The massive grounds surrounding the castle tower within the moat, were not like this originally. There would have been much fewer trees as the area would have been filled with living quarters, homes, military storerooms, stables and craftsmen workshops. The Imperial buildings would have stood here too.

Today there are fountains and large ponds and the trees have been allowed to flourish to form a huge public park.

The number of varieties of trees each with differing colour shades of leaves makes it a wonderful place to stroll and recover in the shade, from the heat of the day.

You will see lots of what appear to be stone platforms or flat foundations – that’s exactly what they are. When the A bomb hit the wooden walls and roofs sitting on these stone foundations were ripped away. The whole area of the castle grounds was totally flattened.

A huge part of the Imperial army was stationed here as it was a military barracks and HQ and also held the royal palace building (the Emperor was not here when that tragic event happened).

Nothing remained of the buildings after the blast and what was, was demolished later.

Within the grounds are plaques showing where various HQ buildings, military offices, royal residence and command centres were but nothing remains of them except the foundation.

The only three trees that survived the blast and flourished, are still here today. The underground bunker area where the first radio message was sent to the outside world after the bomb hit is still here however.

On the way out from the Castle and its grounds, but within the moated area, is what I wanted to see next.

Hiroshima Gokoku Shrine

It was originally built in 1868, in another part of Hiroshima, in honour of the dead from the Japanese civil war of 1868-69.

It was moved to a site situated just to the north of the A Bomb Dome area in 1934, but was flattened in the atomic explosion. It was then rebuilt and rededicated inside the grounds of Hiroshima Castle in 1965 to include the victims of the atomic attack.

Emperor Hirohito visited it in 1971 and his attendance gave it widespread interest among the population.

Its grounds are extensive with large carved stone statues dotted around its perimeter. Its symbol is that of a carp fish and there are bronze statues of koi carp on either side of the Hondo main hall.

Tradition has it that you can get good luck by praying and then rubbing the fish statues ….. Yep, I did that!

Today it is the most visited Temple in the region and even has the local city baseball team as visitors to pray for success. At New Year it often sees 600,000 visitors over the 3 day period.

On the day I visited, I was virtually the only person there so had the whole place to myself to wander around and take it all in. .

Former Bank of Japan building still survives 

I’m including these pics here really from personal choice.

I said earlier that when you wander the streets nothing seems older than the 1960s as the city was rebuilt from scratch after being totally flattened from the bomb. Well, apart from the A Bomb Dome building (the old Exhibition Hall that survived because of it steel and stone construction), only a couple of other buildings survived.

This was because they were heavy stone and steel edifices built to withstand the earthquakes that Japan commonly experiences. The former Bank of Japan, near my hotel was one of them. Clearly its stone design saved most of it and it has been saved from demolition due to it still standing after the attack and as another symbol of survival.

The trams are modern but every now and again a traditional one that would have had that design in 1945 trundles by as a city keepsake. I got a photo of one of those trams passing by this building – a picture to reminisce by maybe?

My thoughts on Hiroshima

This was something that I pondered on for ages.

All my life I had wanted to see the Peace Park and A Bomb Dome Building, macabre as it may seem to want to see such relics of human destruction.

I really had no idea what to expect but I assumed a quaint old town and lots of old buildings. Although I knew the city had been obliterated, it stupidly had not sunk in that virtually nothing physically would be left of the old city – my brain had not made that obvious connection.

What I found was a modern, semi-skyscraper city with wonderful green parks and an orderly layout, with wide avenues and department stores everywhere.

It was nothing like the small, old, low-rise city that I imagined …… The city has completely risen like a phoenix and got on with life while building a wonderful Peace Park, statues, memorials and reconstructions to remind us all of that terrible event.

It is calmly reiterating to us that it must never happen again and that Hiroshima is not going to brush it under the carpet or live in shame of it. It’s proudly and, in a very polite Japanese way, shouting for us to never repeat that horrendous act again.

Nov 2017

Below are some related posts on nearby places to visit. Click on the pic to view.