Hiroshima - Touching history

My two-day trip to Hiroshima started, as always, by getting on the train at Kyoto station. After arriving, I toured the station building of Hiroshima a bit (all major stations are huge, multiple storeys, lots of shops (food and other)) and then made my way to the Youth Hostel. I figured it would be a good idea to exactly know where it is and how the buses are scheduled, as the Hiroshima Youth Hostel has a curfew. The walk there from the bus stop didn't seem so long, so so uphill, on the map online, but oh well.
Got there, payed and was off again, this time to the Peace Memorial Museum, located at the south end of the Peace Memorial Park.
On my way there I took a picture that for me really brings out the nature of Japan: A small shrine surrounded by high buildings on a livley crossroad. Indeed, where the past meets the future (I heard that slogan quite often already).

Shrine between modern buildings

Walked along the Promenade of Peace and reached the museum. Admission is 50yen, audio guides are available but not really necessary if you can read English. This museum depicts the horrors of the attack as well as the way leading there and the path Hiroshima took from there on. I didn't shoot many pictures in there (it's not forbidden, just don't use a flash), they wouldn't convey the atmosphere inside anyway. There is a room with big before-after miniatures of the city, there are whole walls lined with international letters of protest, there are medical descriptions of the consequences, there are areas where walls and parts of homes where restored to show how the heat and radiation of the bomb warped, fused and destroyed everyday life. There even is a wall with a shadow eternally burned into it where a human stood at the time of the impact.

Cranes folded by Sadako Sasaki

The story of Sawako, the girl believing in the legend that folding a thousand paper cranes will bring you happiness is also there, along with some of her cranes. She didn't reach her goal and died of radiation-induced Leukemia. Her classmates, however, finished her task and the story of the thousand paper cranes became known worldwide.

What probably touched me most was the video-area where witnesses and victims give there testimonies of those days, how their bodies reacted, how they lost everything and still held on to life.

There are only very few pictures in existence of the first hours after the detonation. A photographer was at the scene, but he was only able to take fife shots and it took him 30 minutes to bring himself to do that much. After those, his vision became too clouded by tears for all the horrors he witnessed.

A-Bomb Dome

After leaving the museum I walked through the park, saw the A-Bomb Dome, a building near the point of explosion that survived the attack (even through everything combustible inside was immediately destroyed). It was preserved as a reminder.

Framed here you can see the place where the flame of peace is kept, which burn as long as there are nukes on this world.

Sight from the Museum

Sight from the A-Bomb Dome

I rung the Bell of Peace and and left.

Bell of Peace

Bell of Peace sign

It was late afternoon by then and I decided to take a look at the lively entertainment areas of Hiroshima. I strolled through the nightlife areas and arcades and ended up eating at Okonomimura, a three storey area which consists of 25 stalls selling the same thing: Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki, one of the local specialties. The food was great, but it became really really hot while sitting to the hot plate (on which they are made, teppanyaki-style), eating piping hot food still on that plate.

Oh, and I found this add. Yes, they really sell those things, about 9EUR and it is yours.

Back to the station and subsequently to the Hostel I crashed, tomorrow I will take a look at Miajima.

So long and stay tuned,
JuergenS

written by

JuergenS on July 10, 2010 from Hiroshima, Japan

from the travel blog: Two month of Japan

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