Hiroshima, 22.05.24

Shinkansen, 11.15, Hakata to Hiroshima 12.17. It is 250 kilometres and the train took just one hour and cost about $300.00 including a seat reservation which is recommended on the Nozomi. That is quite an achievement of technology. The ride is smooth and very quiet. People whisper, no phones allowed and everybody is very polite. 

Our hotel was right next to the station, the Sheraton. Very convenient. No tram or taxi and hardly any walking. Into the lift from the almost from the platform and to reception. Nice room if standard Sheraton fit-out. We had a corner room, glass on two sides and views over central Hiroshima. Watch the trains go by.  

The Peace Dome

But no time for that. Our first port of call was, like everybody else's, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. It was not that far and we could walk. Soon enough the Dome came into sight and the image of destruction and war the world over. A sobering sight, seeing this still standing part of the building which was near the centre of the atomic blast. Photographs around it illustrated the devastation of the city and the suffering of the inhabitants. A stark reminder of the power of an atomic bomb. It is a Peace Park rather than a War Memorial. More poignant in these days, more appropriate and very moving. Not an everyday tourist sight. 

The Peace Dome

It is now a world heritage site and a memorial to the 140000 people who died on that day the 6th of August 1945. Everybody died instantly inside the building which was an industrial exhibition hall. Because the blast occurred almost on top of the building its structure survived to a large part. The Hiroshima City Council decided in 1966 to preserve the building for all time as a reminder and a memorial. 

The Peace Park is quite large with a museum and several shrines, there is the Memorial Cenotaph, the Peace Flame, the Peace Bell and the Children's Peace Monument, which is dedicated to Sadako Sasaki, who folded paper cranes when sick with leukaemia hoping she would be granted her wish for life. But sadly she died in 1955 and now people make their own paper cranes and add them to a glass box. Lots of school children in uniform gathered around these shrines listening to the teachers presumably telling them about the disaster.  

At the bottom of the Children's Peace Monument is an inscription: 'This is our cry, this is our prayer: for building peace in the world'. Figures surround the monument representing angels, meaning that Sadako is in heaven with all the other children who died in the bombing. The paper crane is a symbol of peace.

Cenotaph

We headed for the cafe and a little lunch. The usual please: coffee and cake. Then it was back to the hotel via quiet backstreets. I had a glass of wine or two in the bar and then we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. 

A sobering day really. The astonishing thing is that the city could be rebuilt such a short time after the bombing and that today apart from the Dome nothing reminds of it. I would have thought that the radioactive fallout would have lasted longer and prevented reconstruction. 

A Happy Man