We had to wake up at 6am to catch the very infrequent shinkansen from Odawara to Hiroshima. We quickly had our last private hot spring bath which was so refreshing in the cold morning then headed off.. First the one hour tram, then the train.. and finally to the shinkansen. It was a 4 hour journey which was comfortable on the shinkansen, I slept like a baby upright for once.
We dropped off our luggage at our hostel and then started our one day of sightseeing. We headed to Hiroshima Castle which was almost like an island in the middle of the city due to the large moats.
We then checked out a shinto shrine. And I saw a boy dressed up for the 3, 5, 7 festival. I also picked up these cute little things as Bun and Simba which was just sitting there with an honesty system with a box to put coins in.
Samurai Deena
Samurai James
The free dress ups in Hiroshima Castle were fun, gross and very generous.
Once we climbed up the 5 levels of Hiroshima castle we were met with a modest city view. Most of the museum was closed to photos so I didn’t get to take any. We did however got to hold and wield a katana sword that was secured and damn they were heavy. How did they ever fight with those?
While we were walking to our next destination, we found a food market. HEAVEN! We got warabi mochi and chicken karaage.
We walked to A-Bomb scene which is now declared heritage area and were met with many cats at the park.
We were met with a man that was classed as Level 4 exposed in the bombings. He was in his mother’s tummy at the time. This entitles him to payments from the government as he dealt with many health issues growing up. However it’s very difficult for citizens to be classed into the levels (Level 4 is the last one) as the government didn’t recognise acute or after effects. He was determined to bring the facts to the table and inform tourists despite the renovations going on in the museum. Not only that, he pointed out things that the museum kept hush hush and other nuclear ongoings around the world. It’s hard to relay as it is interesting information but it’s a fine line between fact, fiction, propaganda and speculation that I don’t want to delve into here.
Above is a roof tile that got exposed to the nuclear bombings for 1.4 seconds getting hit with over 3000 degrees Celsius and bubbling up. You could just imagine what happened to the people. Once I got to this part of Hiroshima the sadness that envelops this city really hit me. It’s so hard to get my mind around the fact that such devastation ever occurred.
When we got to the Children’s Memorial I was very moved. As a kid I read Sadako’s story so when mum and I ran into some trouble when I was young, I had started making cranes for my mum to make her wish. Soon we had my mum, aunties and family friends joining in to make 1000 cranes.
Afterwards we went into the part of the museum which was left open during the renovations. It was very confronting to see graphic images and artefacts such as glass shards stuck in concrete walls, affected clothes and kimono designs imprinted into the skin of those who were outside in the outskirts.
Sadako’s crane
Afterwards we headed into the city centre and checked out Don Quijote, a supermarket of everything. I was in heaven when I saw the Green Tea stand.
We wrapped up our day with Hiroshima’s famous okonomiyaki. We went into Okonomiyaki street to be entertained by the chefs who make them in front of you. I was bewildered by the amount of cabbage and spring onions they chucked on top of the savoury crepes. It soon turned into smithereens as they pressed and flipped the dish on the stainless steel barbecue.
Comments are closed.