Inspiring Hiroshima

Hello from Hiroshima!

After our seven hour bus ride we walked to K's House, not far from Hiroshima station, and settled into our traditional Japanese tatami room (tatami mat flooring with a low table and floor mats, and at nighttime you take futon matresses out of the sliding wardrobe to sleep on). We headed out for dinner and tried the nearest place we could find as even though we're further south now it's still freeeeezing, but fortunately we stumbled upon an okonomiyaki place. Hiroshima is famous for its oysters and okonomiyaki which is a savoury pancakes with noodles, egg, vegetables and meat cooked on a griddle in front of you, and I can confirm it was declicious. We were pretty tired after the long journey so we got a couple of beers out of the vending machine and retired to our room for some rounds of backpacker before bed.

This morning we headed out into Hiroshima to experience the Peace Memorial Park and surrounding museum/monuments, and it has been a very moving day. We started out walking along Peace Boulevard, which is the main street in the city, and had coffee at J Cafe, a really lovely little place on one of the corners.

Then we walked up to Peace Memorial Park and started by visiting the museum there. It starts with displays which explain the build up to the war (Japanese aggression against the US and China - it's very balanced), and then what happened at 8.15am on August 6th 1945, followed by the aftermath of the atomic bomb. It explains that there were four possible cities it could have been dropped on that day, but because Hiroshima had clear skies and better visibility, it was the chosen location.

At the start there are some particularly poignant objects, like an old watch from a victim of the bomb which stopped exactly at that moment. There are are also large 3D models of how the city looked on the 5th August, and how it looked after the dropping of the bomb, which are shocking. The bomb exploded almost exactly over the top of what is now known as the A-bomb dome, 600 metres in the sky, and apart from that building pretty much everything for 2km was completely levelled, and most people that were outside and in that vicinity from what the call the hypocentre, were all killed.

The third part of the exhibition has lots of sad reminders of the many children who were working outside that day, school uniforms ripped to shreds, charred lunch boxes, one sandal found by a parent after the bomb. There are also examples of just how powerful the bomb was - roof tiles and metal kilometres away from the epicentre which still bubbled under the heat, in fact fires raged through the city for the next two days after the explosion. The power of the bomb was such that when it exploded the nucleus was at a heat of over a million degrees, and an enormous fireball was created, spreading to a diameter of 290 metres in one second.

All of this, as you can imagine, is pretty overwhelming to see, but there is a positive message that the museum promotes, which is of peace. There are also lots of displays about the importance of nucleur disarmament, and about how despite whole families being wiped out, and even decades after the bombing persistent illnesses from the radiation still cause problems for people today, the brave people of Hiroshima have rebuilt there city, and made it a beautiful, prosperous place. And it really is, we've encountered some of the loveliest, friendliest people here. If you didn't know about the city's tragic past you'd have no idea such horror ever happened to Hiroshima.

After the museum we went to the cenotaph in the lovely Peace Memorial Park which is filled with fountains and water features in rememberance of those who died of thirst on that day (it seems the bomb did something that made them all desperate for a drink, so many drank the radiation poisoned 'black rain' which fell from the sky that day, or jumped into the river when they couldn't handle their injuries. The cenotaph contains the names of all the known victims of the bomb (they estimate around 150,000 but many people were never found, and have died from cancers etc since so there's no way of knowing the real figure), and also frames the flame of peace, which will only be extinguised when the last nuclear weapon on earth has been destroyed. From there we visited the Children's Peace Monument which was inspired by leukaemia victim Sadako Saski. She developed the diesease at 11 years old, ten years after the bomb was dropped, and believed that if she folded 1000 paper cranes (which symbolise longevity and happiness in Japan) she would be cured. She died before she could reach 1000, but her classmates carried on for her, and now the Children's Monument is covered in thousands and thousands of paper cranes, folded from children all over the world in rememberance.

From there we went to the A-bomb dome, which served as an industral promotion hall until the bomb exploded almost directly above it. There was alot of debate as to whether the building should be left standing exactly as it was that day, but the government eventually decided to leave it. Set against the skyscrapers of 'new' Hiroshima, the dome is a truly stark reminder of what happened here.

Finally, we visited the Peace memorial hall for atomic bomb victims, which contains a large rememberance hall for quiet contemplation, and also pictures of the victims of the bomb, and testimonials from survivors. We sat for a long time reading them and taking in the solemn, but also inspiring atmosphere.

Argh! My computer is bleeping at me so I have about 3 seconds left, so I must go, getting on an overnight bus to Tokyo now. Sorry about alll the spelling mistakes etc - been rushing. More detail next time!