Day 9: Hiroshima and Miyajima

Hiroshima

It was an early start as the train was leaving at 7.20 (fortunately we were only a few minutes from the station), woke up to a Mister Donut in bed and Aaron streaming a bit of Match of the Day haha!

Hiroshima

We went to the atom bomb dome first, which is an incredible sight, and a stark contrast with the lively modern city around it.

We then went through the peace park and saw the childrens memorial, and went to the memorial hall which was heart rending. You saw images of the devastation to the city, pictures and names of the dead which humanised things, and then finally and worst of all there was a video of essays written by children who had survived, accompanied by drawings. The things they had seen were soul destroying, and at such a young age. I hadnt realised that a lot of middle school children had been sent out to demolish buildings for fire lanes for the city and so were outside and exposed to the radiation a few hundred metres away from the centre. I left feeling a bit sick from that one.

We then went to the museum which was somehow easier to handle. It gave more details about the children who were working on demolition, as well as other individuals, and there were some shocking artefacts and images, but it also gave some interesting info on how the atomic bomb worked, demonstrated and explained the effects, etc.

 

We then had a quick wander around the main part of the city and had okonomiyaki for lunch in a place where we sat at the counter which was part of a giant hotplate which the chefs cooked the food on, that was pretty cool. We also saw some kind of festival going on and got some massive crepes.

 

Then we got a bus, train, and ferry over to Miyajima. Miyajima is beautiful. Theres some beach, a few shopping streets, the giant floating tori gate and shrine, and deer roaming freely.

 

 

 

The deer were trying to mug us of our ice creams and some tourists have pictures of me being rammed in the bum by one haha, and Aaron got rammed a lot too and eventually cracked and surrendered his ice cream (he claims he sacrificed it so that I could finish mine), I was not giving up my green tea and vanilla mix!

We went back to the room (traditional tatami room with futon beds) and played bananagrams on our balcony looking out over the sea and eating our sushi.

 

At night it's much quiter, and stone lanterns are lit all along the path so you can walk between the trees and the sea and look out at the lights of hiroshima and see the floating gate lit up.

The tide was out so we managed to walk out to the gate... which wasnt such a great idea in our trainers as there were still bits that were deeper than our shoes and they got soaked through :/

Back to the room again via a shop to get more socks, and we used the hair dryer on Aarons shoes and then left both pairs on the balcony. I knew I'd be ok as I had my walking boots but I really hoped his dry by morning..!

Next post: Day 10: More Miyajima