The reminder of pains of War.... Hiroshima

By far the most moving city I have been to yet.
To think the entire city is only 60 years old and was completely wiped out in the world first nuclear bomb explosion.

Anyways, ill start off from the beginning...

My trip to Hiroshima started off a bit rocky to say the least... I arrived by Shinkansen (Bullet Train) and asked information about the location of the hostel, to my absolute delight i was told its 30 min by train outside of the town... *joy....* so onto another train and out of town i headed, the hostel was in a town called "Miyajima".

Here i was 25 min later not seeing the station I hopped off at Miyajimaguchi, it seemed close enough. I asked the guard at the station and Yippee!! The place i was looking for was 20 min by FERRY over the water... *sigh* so off i went with my 30KG backpack onto a ferry... got to the dock on the other side and again asked the guard... "oh no, that's on the other side just next to the dock, its the white building on the left" *Steffen falls over*

So once again I was sailing away... Finally found the hostel, and i couldn't check in till 4pm, so i had 2 hours to kill..

What you think i did??

I bought the ferry to the Island again and went exploring :) The ticket inspector did a double take when he accepted my ticket.

The island it self was beautiful enough, it had a mountain you could climb, waterfalls, beaches, and a shrine.
The first thing I noticed was deers, deers and more deers everywhere.... They were so tame you could walk up and touch them and then they ate your map. DAMIT, now how can I get around...

The Shrine in the sea just off the island was over 1000 years old, its often in pictures that are linked to Hiroshima even though its well outside the city and in a differ prefecture.

There was also a aquarium on the island which, was cheap to enter, I later found out it had only opened that day!! hence was so cheap. Was a stock standard aquarium but there was these shellfish that looked like fossils and I had never seen a live one before pictured on the side, they are Japanese Horseshoe Crabs.

(Pictured on the left.)

Once seeing that it was time to head back and check in, that night i was going to head into town and see the lantern boats in the river, today was the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

While checking in I could hear a few guys talking in Danish, into introduced myself and they were looking at doing the same then heading out, so we all decided to go together.

The Lanterns were special to see, there was also live music and lights and it was a really special event, with the Abomb dome as the back drop.

The next day, there was a festival back in Miyajima called the sundance festival which was raising money for the red cross for the earthquake victim. It was 40oC outside and humid, and no shade... it was a "real beach party". Dehydration + to much to drink i had a early departure.

The following day, I visited Hiroshima and the war museum. It was by far one of the most somber museum. they went through the history of Hiroshima and its involvement in the war's past and up to WW2, then the events leading up to the bombing and the dockets from america stating the selection of the sites.
Then the bombing and the devastation.

They also showed cloths, items and effects that were collected after the bombing.
I only took 2 photos of the models of the city, before and after. I don't believe its fair on the anyone regardless of axis of allies to take photos of war history items, special when its such a significant event.

I also visited the memorial to Sadako Sasaki the girl who died of cancer as a result of the Abomb, and started the 1000 paper cranes movement. These days there are millions of paper cranes at the monument and around at the entire peace park. They are not just in in cranes, but they are also in mosaics made out of cranes.

All I can say is if you ever find your way to Hiroshima i would highly recommend seeing the war museum it was a real eye opener and very informative to the work being done by hiroshima council and there commitment to the disarmament of nuclear weapons around the world.








Anyways, I really enjoyed my 3 days in Hiroshima and the nearby islands.

Off to Osaka now to try and sort out a visa to China, then I'm off to South Korea!