At the front of the park we found the Atomic Bomb Dome. It makes for a confronting introduction. Apart from this charred half-building, everything near the bomb's focal point was flattened. The city decided to preserve the dome as a memorial to the 140,000 who died on impact or from radiation poisoning. Beneath the skeletal dome itself is an iron staircase that's been warped into something Dali would be proud of. A bunch of splitting nuclei did that. And if this is the building that survived the bomb, imagine...
We crossed a bridge into the park itself and found ourselves at the foot of the Children's Peace Monument. In primary school, I remember reading a picture book about the sick little girl who folded 1000 paper cranes in the hope it would help her get better. The statue was dedicated to this girl, Sadako Sasaki, who was two years old when the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and who died of radiation poisoning about a decade later. She symbolizes the innocent victims of war, and her statue is surrounded by about a billion origami paper cranes.
The Peace Memorial Museum was outstanding, one of those places that almost justifies a trip to Japan all by itself. It's divided into historical, anecdotal and scientific sections, united by an overriding anti-nuke theme. It'll cost you 50 cents, several hours and tissues by the box.
The historical section contained some interesting and highly disturbing information I hadn't heard before, such as: (1) conventional bombing was banned in Hiroshima and three other potential target cities pre-August 1945 so the atomic bomb's effects could be most accurately witnessed; (2) Japan was selected for the bomb as 'they would not be so apt to secure knowledge from it as would the Germans'; and (3) the US decided to try ending the war with the bomb rather than asking the Soviet Union to join the war against Japan as this would restrict Soviet influence post war and (wait for it) domestically justify the tremendous cost of the bomb's development. Well, I suppose that third point should have been obvious, but.
The next section of the museum was the most upsetting by far. Our audio guides recited story after story of parents searching for their children, ending in the discovery of some scraps of clothing, or a lunch box filled with ash, or a curled up body on the street. These stories were accompanied by exhibits, displaying everything from dropped-off fingernails to shoes with a footprint burned in, to wax figures with melting skin like something from a dodgy horror movie. Another nightmarish exhibit was a set of marble stairs imprinted with the shadow of a man. While the surrounding area was bleached by the extreme light released on detonation, the place where the man had been sitting kept its original colour. Before being confronted with this sort of evidence, I'd never fully thought through the immediate physical consequences of the bomb.
Bleak bleak bleak. We left the museum more than a little downcast and walked through the rest of the beautiful park, pausing to ring the Peace Bell. But the tone of our evening changed entirely when we discovered the gaudiest lights display imaginable on Peace Boulevard. It's called Dreamination, it's an annual winter festival, and it must make up a full half of Hiroshima's energy bill. We got a bit excited, but who could blame us? There were hot air balloons, a unicorn Pegasus, dragons, a pirate ship plus whale, a Cinderella pumpkin carriage and giant shoe, snowflakes, several bunny rabbits, love seats galore and two tunnels, all made up of multicoloured strings of lights.
We followed this up with a Hiroshima specialty: okonomiyaki. On the strength of a passerby's directions, we found ourselves in a food court serving one thing and one thing only: a sort of fried omelette sandwich containing bean shoots and cabbage and various other bits and pieces. Ours were cooked on a wrap-around stove counter right in front of us. Using chopsticks to eat the okonomiyaki was a challenge, to say the least. A delicious challenge.
The next day we took a train and ferry to Miyajima, the Shrine Island in Hiroshima Bay. The shrine part refers to its famous and heritage-listed Itsukushima shrine, first erected in the 6th century. But forget the shrine for a moment; the most exciting part of the island, and another key reason to visit Japan, is the shrine's floating torii gate. Bright red, mesmeric, magical. Not actually floating, but lodged in the sand at a distance from the shore that's walkable at low tide. At all other times, the gate appears to float directly in front of the shrine. Photos don't do it justice. But I took about a thousand just in case.
Rather than head straight to the torii, Maddy and I got off the ferry and embarked on a nature walk up the side of a mountain. It was all about the autumn colours, good views and deer. Good grief, the deer. Clearly used to being fattened up by tourists, they fixed us with their beady eyes and followed us up the path. And then we saw one gnawing on a bone. That's when we decided to actively avoid all future deer. Especially since it's forbidden to die (or give birth) on Miyajima.
There were five-tiered pagodas and endless temples and a couple of parks bristling with suspect deer, and then there was the floating gate. We wandered through the lantern-studded corridors of the ancient shrine itself, but honestly, the highlight was its view of the torii.
And that was Hiroshima: a draining, unforgettable couple of days. Oh, and our lovely lovely hostel gave me a replacement power plug converter that some stupid Australian had left behind. Cliffhanger resolved!
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