Taking a 1:30 minute journey on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. Being further south we were hoping for better weather and compared to Osaka it was.
We arrived to find rather than a subway there are a confusing series of trains, you pay when you get off which caught us a bit off guard.
To memorialise the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima is a memorial park which contains the impact site the so called bomb dome. This twisted structure was directly hit by the blast but the energy traveled outwards destroying everything else yet leaving leaving this relic in it place. The park is incredibly peaceful so seeing the bomb dome up close was particularly chilling. Anything combustable was incinerated leaving only the skeletal structure behind.
We spent a couple of hours wondering the park, visting some of the many monuments and memorials there.
Emerging from the park past the baseball stadium where people were playing a game. We walked to the Hiroshima Jo grounds walking over the moat we passed a Kendo tournament in process. We stopped to watching in fascination.
Hiroshima castle was like much of the city flattened or burned following the bomb and rebuild post war.
I was stopped at one point where a Japanese man asked me if I were an American, and if I understood what had happened here. Fortunately as a Brit he let me pass.
The mood was a bit sombre on the way back to the hostel, we had a quiet evening and pizza from the place next to the hostel.
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| A tree which survived the bomb |
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| Hiroshima Jo |
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| Kendo |
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