Hiroshima

Posted on Jul 10, 2014

We took the Shinkansen (Bullet) train north to Hiroshima and because of Japan been small and the high speed of the train, we were in Hiroshima not long after midday. Coming here from China is taking some adjusting, in China the trains run at the same speed as Shinkansen and we still spent half days and whole days on the train travelling across the country. In Japan the hotels all have check out times of 10am or 11am and check in times of 3pm. So far we haven’t been allowed into a room before 3pm, so either they are always getting a thorough cleaning, or the rule applies even if the room is ready. To avoid disappointment in the future if the room isn’t ready maybe? As we couldn’t get into the room we grabbed both umbrellas and headed out for lunch and to explore. The next day was already planned, in the morning we were going to the Mazda factory and in the afternoon to the Peace Museum. Less than a 5 minute walk from our hotel was the Peace Memorial Park and the famous A-Bomb dome. These are here because on August 6th 1945 at 08:15am an American bomber dropped the first atomic bomb in human history over Hiroshima, it exploded 600m above the dome and flattened the city in seconds. It killed over 100,000 people and flattened every building in the centre of the city, except the dome which was directly beneath the hypocenter. We stood by the dome for a few minutes, just staring at it and imagining the destruction it has seen. In the memorial garden is the Children’s Peace Memorial. This was designed in reference to a 12 year old girl, Sadako Sasaki, who survived the atomic bomb at the age of 2 but developed leukaemia 10 years later and was given at most a year to live. There is a legend in Japan that if you fold a thousand paper cranesyour wish will come true. Sadako started folding the paper cranesbut it’s unclear whether she made it to 1,000 or not, one version of the story says she did, another days she only reached 644 before her death. The moment was made to look like a paper crane and shows children playing with paper cranes. It is a memorial to the thousands of children who were killed by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Inscribed on it are the words, “This is our cry, this is our prayer: for building peace in the world.” After seeing that we walked along the river for a bit and around a large but dilapidated garden and...