Hiroshima
We saved Tuesday for Hiroshima, a city we both were very interested in getting to, and headed down in the morning via the Shinkansen. This was poor choice #2 as we ended up on another Kodoma and cost ourselves some sightseeing time. But once we did get to Hiroshima, wow, what an amazing experience. We found our way to Peace Park, the location of the A-Bomb dome.
This dome was left standing after the bomb was dropped and a park has been built around it to educate and memorialize this eerie landmark. There are also memorials made up of a) a flame that is supposedly from the original fire, kept burning over the years, and b) a mound of ashes, built up with the remains of people lost in the bombings. To say this is a sobering experience would be a gross understatement. Sadly, there were as always tourists posing for cheeky photos of these monuments and I was surprised to see Asians doing the posing at a spot I’d imagined would be quite serious for them. Then they started speaking English and my faith was restored in American’s ability to downplay the meaning and severity of these memorials as I’d seen at Pearl Harbor before. It really makes me sad to see people smiling and climbing on each other laughing at the site of this history changing events where so many people lost their lives.
We headed over to Hiroshima castle, walking past the old Hiroshima Carp baseball park. The new Mazda stadium was visible from the train but the season doesn’t start for a couple of months, so we weren’t able to catch a game.
Hiroshima castle was rebuilt next to the spot of the original, as it too was destroyed in the bombings. There are on the grounds actual trees that survived the bombings which were pretty amazing to see.
We went for some lunch in a local mall and then grabbed a Hikari train back to Osaka where we had a late night sushi dinner surrounded by drunk Japanese businessmen. Sake was flowing, toasts were happening, and honor and respect played into their interactions, evident by the senior members of the group made clear by the deference paid to them. After dinner we had another quick nightcap in the hotel bar and headed off to bed to get ready for our return to Kyoto.
This dome was left standing after the bomb was dropped and a park has been built around it to educate and memorialize this eerie landmark. There are also memorials made up of a) a flame that is supposedly from the original fire, kept burning over the years, and b) a mound of ashes, built up with the remains of people lost in the bombings. To say this is a sobering experience would be a gross understatement. Sadly, there were as always tourists posing for cheeky photos of these monuments and I was surprised to see Asians doing the posing at a spot I’d imagined would be quite serious for them. Then they started speaking English and my faith was restored in American’s ability to downplay the meaning and severity of these memorials as I’d seen at Pearl Harbor before. It really makes me sad to see people smiling and climbing on each other laughing at the site of this history changing events where so many people lost their lives.
We headed over to Hiroshima castle, walking past the old Hiroshima Carp baseball park. The new Mazda stadium was visible from the train but the season doesn’t start for a couple of months, so we weren’t able to catch a game.
Hiroshima castle was rebuilt next to the spot of the original, as it too was destroyed in the bombings. There are on the grounds actual trees that survived the bombings which were pretty amazing to see.
We went for some lunch in a local mall and then grabbed a Hikari train back to Osaka where we had a late night sushi dinner surrounded by drunk Japanese businessmen. Sake was flowing, toasts were happening, and honor and respect played into their interactions, evident by the senior members of the group made clear by the deference paid to them. After dinner we had another quick nightcap in the hotel bar and headed off to bed to get ready for our return to Kyoto.
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