Japan 2015 Part 3 – Hiroshima

Hiroshima is quite a famous city due to its dark history on the second world war. We included Hiroshima in our itinerary, which was quite off the usual Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka route for two reasons. First is because I am quite curious to see what does the city that have recovered from a nuclear explosion look like. And the second reason is because due to its location, Hiroshima is the most efficient base camp if you wanted to visit Okunoshima a.k.a the Rabbit Island.

Getting to Hiroshima is relatively easy, because the city was in the shinkansen main line, and it’s about 3 hours westbound journey from Osaka. Our actual itinerary included Okunoshima side trip on the second morning, but the rabbit island deserves its own blog post, which I will post after this article. In this article I will cover the city of Hiroshima itself and the side trip to Miyajima on the next day. (actual Miyajima timing was after Okunoshima)

We arrived from Koyasan (via Osaka) on the afternoon. Our hotel was Hiroshima Kokusai Hotel, with a Japanese-style room again. This hotel is very conveniently located near the Peace Memorial Park and the Hondori Street, the two main attractions in the city.

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Our Japanese style room in Hiroshima Kokusai Hotel
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Hondori Street. A bit like Dotonbori in Osaka!

From our hotel it was a short walk away to Peace Memorial Park area. You will be able to see how beautiful the city is today, especially at that time when the sakura was blossoming.

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View overlooking a bridge connecting towards Peace Memorial Park
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On the other side, there was the A-bomb Dome…

The Peace Memorial Park complex was vast, beautiful, and peaceful. It felt like a sacred place (for me), considering that this area was the ground zero of the explosion. People without a history background will definitely think that this park is a really nice park, with children running around chasing each other happily, couples enjoying the scenery, and tourists snapping photographs of the view.

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This is the Sasako Saseki monument, dedicated to the 12-year old girl that died of leukemia as the long-term effect of the radiation. She was sculpted holding paper cranes for the heartbreaking story on how she folded more than 1000 paper cranes wishing for a cure, but she eventually died…
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View overlooking the cenotaph with Peace Museum at the background
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This children monument is dedicated for all the children and students that died from the explosion
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The Cenotaph of memorial of the victims. A lot of people prayed and paid their respect here when we visited

You should not miss visiting the Peace Museum where all the dark past of the city was presented in the spirit of making a peaceful world. Only there you will appreciate and understand the extent of destruction caused by a nuclear explosion. The museum displayed various relics, ruins and all the silent witness of that deadly explosion and described all the pains and sorrow of the people. It was very powerful, and needless to say it got me pretty emotional. I did not take any photographs of the relics, but I definitely will not ever forget the charred lunch box and the charred tricycle…

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A very powerful message of hope, quoted here: That autumn – In Hiroshima where it was said – “For seventy-five years nothing will grow” – New buds sprouted – In the green that came back to life – Among the charred ruins – People recovered – Their living hopes and courage
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From the museum we learned that this spot was the hypocenter of the bomb. It was detonated roughly 600 metres above this point

After learning about the destruction from the museum, going back to see the beautiful city restored 70 years later was very impressive. Not only the rebuilding of the physical state, but also the mental state. Hiroshima was reborn as the City of Peace, after they had suffered so much. They wanted their city to be the center of world peace. It took a great courage, hope, perseverance, and forgiveness to do just that. And I have to say, they have succeeded!

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Me below a beautiful sakura tree
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Such a beautiful park
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Nagata-ya was one of the famous okonomiyaki in town besides the Okunomimura. It is conveniently located just outside the Peace Park, and they were quite English-friendly!

The next morning we went to the Rabbit Island, which will be covered in the next post. After Rabbit Island we went straight away to Miyajima, which was conveniently served by JR line too! You can also take the Hiroden to get to Miyajimaguchi station though.

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On JR Miyajima station. I’m too happy after visiting the rabbit island!

There will be two boat companies operating ferries to Miyajima, one is a private company and the other is JR. Of course if you hold a JR Pass, the journey was covered. Sweet!

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Wide angle lens sucks on long-distance shots, here there’s the famous Miyajima torii in the center but it was so small!
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Deer was quite common in Miyajima. I thought only Nara has deer!
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Should not miss one of Hiroshima’s specialty, the fresh oyster. This restaurant is called ‘Yakigaki no Hayashi’ and it specialized in seafood, and yes it’s English-friendly!
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The famous torii gate of Miyajima
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Itsukushima Shrine complex
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Since the tide was quite low, we could get down and see…
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Me and the torii
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Asked a tourist with a DSLR to take this picture. Turned out he’s rather pro

Itsukushima Shrine was only one part of Miyajima (which was the most famous), but the island itself still has a lot to explore. So we went on one hiking trail and these were what we found:

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A big pagoda with blooming sakura trees in its surroundings
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A big temple above the hill named Daisho-in
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Also a place where deer rest below sakura trees!
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Took the last shot of the memory card during the sunset

That concludes our Hiroshima trip as we departed to Kyoto the next day. I would recommend visiting Hiroshima if you want something different from your trip to Japan. I will continue the next post with the detailed journal from the beautiful rabbit island. Stay tuned!

Go to Part 4 – Okunoshima >>>

<<< Back to Part 2 – Koyasan

Japan Trip 2015 Main Page

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