If you're in Japan, it's severely remiss not to visit Hiroshima to pay your respects to the awful tragedy that happened there. It's such an important part of Japan's (modern) history. I walked around thinking over what it must have been like to have been going about your everyday life to that happening in a blink of an eye. It's staggering. And horrifically sad.
But this doesn't mean you should avoid going, absolutely not. We took the shinkansen from Okayama to Hiroshima, which took us 40 minutes and cost about £60 each for a return ticket. Our first stop was
Shukkeien Garden, one of my favourite gardens we visited in Japan. You'll find there a giant ginkgo tree, which was the only tree there to survive the atomic bomb in 1945, as well as cute bridges, ponds, trees, plants and shrines. Entry costs 260 yen, which is around £1.38 at the moment, and this garden has to be on your list if you're in Hiroshima. Such a beautiful place, but one tinged with sadness.
From there we headed to
Ki-ichi to have yakisoba for lunch, which is a great spot, followed by a visit to Hiroshima Castle and the Gokoku Shrine. The castle was originally built in 1591 but, obviously, like most of Hiroshima was destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945 so the castle you see today only dates from 1958. Like the ginkgo tree in Shukkeien Garden, miraculously, a few trees also survived within the castle grounds. Estimates reckon that around 70% of Hiroshima's buildings were wiped out by the atomic bomb, with around a further 7% severely damaged.
The next bit of Hiroshima we visited was more directly linked to that awful day on 6 August, 1945. Firstly, the Atomic Bomb Dome (Genbaku Dome) which is the image often attributed to this atrocity. The Americans were actually targeting the Aioi Bridge by Promotion Hall (its name at the time), but the bomb went off above the nearby Shima Hospital instead. It killed around 145,000 people: 70,000 directly from the bomb, and a further 70,000 later on because of either injury or the effects of radiation.
The preserved ruin of the dome is kept as a reminder, but they've also created the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park (of which the dome is a part of it) and the
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I would highly recommend you do spend some time in the museum as it's really moving and informative. What I found especially sad was that they had warned residents the day before this was going to happen - because rations were linked to the place you lived, people stayed put. I guess the thought of starving seemed worse because they couldn't comprehend the devastation of an atomic bomb as one had never been dropped before. So, so tragic.
From there we hopped on a bus, then the the train to Hiroden-Miyajimaguchi Station where we got the ferry across to Miyajima. The
ferry only takes ten minutes and you can still use your Suica (IC card) so no need to buy a ticket. Miyajima is a pretty island where you can hike, see wild-roaming deer but, more notably, it's where Itsukushima Jinja is. This is a beautiful shrine that dates from the 12th century and looks like it is floating when the tide comes in - it's quite something. If we had more time we would have loved to have explored the island further, but we were pretty happy to watch the setting sun as the tide came in before we headed back to Okayama. x
No comments