so hard to get out of bed. the air was nice and cool, and the duvets were so warm and inviting. but we eventually decided that if we wanted to see anything in this city, we best get moving. there were 2 main ways to get from miyajima to hiroshima, back on the local JR train or a tram. with a little calculation we discovered the tram would take pretty much forever. so away we went - using our JR passes! - to a city that will forever be known for one thing.
once at hiroshima station we caught a local tram that took us directly to the a-bomb dome stop. we could have walked and probably just followed the tracks, but i didn't have a detailed map of the area and that always makes me a bit nervous. anyway, the tram worked well enough, and within minutes a massive skeleton of a building became visible. it was the a-bomb dome, the most haunting reminder of what happened back in august of 1945. the bomb detonated almost directly above the building, killing everyone inside instantly, but for reasons unknown left the building standing despite leveling everything else for miles around. controversy followed - to knock it down? to keep it as a memorial? UNESCO actually registered it in 1996, despite both chinese and american misgivings. however, i can say i'm glad they kept it. what history would have been lost to not have such a monument. let us never forget..
we made our way over to the peace memorial museum so that we would have plenty of time and wouldn't feel rushed. it was a bit crowded for my liking, but moving nonetheless. i got an audio guide, not so much b/c the displays were lacking english, but b/c entry to the museum was only Y50 (like 50 cents) and i wanted to give it more haha. the museum was very well done and i feel was pretty unbiased. it went into all aspects of the bomb: why it was created, tensions between japan and other nations over the course of history, WWII itself, logistics of the bombing, how nuclear energy is made, and of course the acute and chronic effects of radiation and the bombing on hiroshima and its people. most moving were the personal stories of the children, most of which were on military assignment to demolish buildings to create fire lanes - and so the fact they were outside that day led to more injuries and deaths than had they been inside a classroom learning. so incredibly tragic.
feeling a bit overwhelmed afterwards, we decided to decompress at a restaurant. outside a sign said "lunch dinner dessert" so we figured it was tourist friendly. inside, though, the waitress tried to explain that we could have fish or 'ca-roque'. she sounded like a croaking frog and we had no idea what she was trying to say. flustered she finally brought out a dinner menu and pointed to indicate she meant 'croquette' haha. so i got fish and jos got 'ca-roque'. and it was good. we followed this by a quick stop to 7-11 for dessert and discovered flavored kit-kats. OMG. this time it was strawberry and coffee, and we quickly made it our mission to see what other flavors we could find as we travelled across japan.
fueled up, we headed back over to peace memorial park and stopped at the various monuments: hiroshima national peace memorial hall for the atomic bomb victims (long name, but it showed pictures and personal accounts of victims and survivors); the cenotaph (names of all victims); children's peace monument (inspired by sadako sasaki & her 1000 paper cranes); the korean a-bomb memorial (dedicated to korean slave laborers who were 1/10 of all killed); the mound (containing ashes of 70,000 killed and cremated b/c couldn't be identified); the bell & clock towers of peace; and my favorite - the flame of peace, which will burn until the last nuclear weapon is destroyed.
we continued our walk towards hiroshima-jo (carp castle), but made a pit stop at carp stadium which had a display of paper cranes people still send from all over the world. there was even a room that allowed us to make our own paper cranes. now, i'm pretty crafty, but the origami directions made NO sense whatsoever and i quickly became frustrated and gave up. jos pushed on, but she too eventually had to admit defeat, even after trying to get the old man supervisor to help her. at least she made a fortune teller; mine resembled a dead frog. guess no world peace for us!
back outside to the reconstructed castle. we stopped to take pictures but decided not to go inside so we could hit up miyajima island instead, which was a wise decision. we got a bit lost trying to get back to the train station without a map but eventually made it back to miyajima, where we discovered that we could use our JR passes for the ferry too. score again! on the island we were bombarded by deer. for real. they were sooo domesticated, had no fear and would literally stalk people.
stopped first at the floating gate of the itsukushima-jinja shrine - which is one of the most photographed sites and ranked as one of the 3 best views in all of japan. the shrine itself was closed unfortunately but was impressive to see anyway. up the hill to senjo-kaku and its pagoda, which by this time it was pretty dark, though the moon above in the background made for a pretty site.
back toward the pier we stopped at a crazy souvenir shop and then tried to find dinner. most places were boarded up and closed (not high season) so we wandered until we found one that had oysters (this regions specialty). at first we weren't sure if it was open, but jos was brave enough to poke her head in and the lady welcomed us warmly. we had to take off our shoes and sit at a very low table that was cut into the floor. pretty cool. she was all cleaned up for the night, so we felt badly for making her dirty her kitchen again. i don't think she minded though, and i ordered quite a bit of food to try to make it worth her while. extra rice, sake and fried oysters. jos even tried one (so proud of her!). they were delicious, tho i'm not sure jos agreed ha. found some custard filled cake things for dessert and headed back to the mainland. quite a satisfying day.
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