Hiroshima

7/23 - The Peace Museum and a Concrete Castle

Our last full day in Japan. Originally, the plan had been to either spend this in Nagoya or Nara, but somehow our visit to the train museum inspired a change in plans to pass the day in Hiroshima - don’t ask, it made sense at the time. Through the magic of bullet trains (we definitely got our money’s worth out of the JR passes), we left early and arrived around 10am, put our bags into a storage locker and headed out.

Our first stop was at the Atomic Bomb Dome. The Atomic Bomb Dome is located meters away from ground zero of the first atomic bomb dropped (Little Man) and somehow managed to stay standing – it is hypothesized that being almost directly under the bomb might have allowed it to stay up. After the war, the citizens argued about what to do with the remaining structure – many preferred to have it torn down to avoid having a reminder in place. However, as everything else was rebuilt and cleaned up, agreement grew on turning it into a memorial and now it essentially kicks off the park area of the peace memorial and museum. The remaining structure is fascinating to see and actually reminds me of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, in which the remains of a bombed out church remain as a memorial to innocent war victims.

Walking over the river we arrived at the Peace Park, which is home to an eternal flame, the Children’s Monument (in honor of the children who died), the Cenotaph for Atomic Bomb Victims and the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial for Atomic Bomb Victims (not skimping on the title there). They were all laid out well and impactful. The National Peace Memorial in particular was really well done and full of symbolism related to the victims, the annihilated neighborhoods and the exact moment the bomb went off – not to be all American-centric about it, but it brought back the feeling I had the first time I saw the Vietnam Veterens Memorial in DC.

Also in the park was the Hiroshima National Peace Museum. Unfortunately, much of it was under construction, but we still got to visit much of the core collection which focused on the timeline of why the war started, why the bomb was dropped, and what has happened related to nuclear warfare in the time since. They did have one small exhibit focused on the stories of those who survived the blast recounting their experiences with those they lost and included various artifacts that had been through the blast. Everything was done with taste and focused on non-proliferation and peace, very little on finger-pointing. Overall, an museum I’d recommend – I’m sure it would be better with the full museum open as well.

We stopped at a vegetarian place for lunch and had a version of the typical Okomomiyaki dish native to the area – it was great, probably not the same as the non-vegetarian version, but still great.

Following lunch, we headed over to the Hiroshima Castle. Made of concrete, so an obvious reconstruction (the original had been destroyed in the bomb blast), it had the stylings of Himeji Castle, but was now basically a shell for a museum. However, more than the castle, the castle grounds were actually quite interesting. They had a lot of labels throughout on where the original castle had been located (some of the stone foundations were still in place) and a few scattered trees throughout had labels about how they had survived the blast and their distance from it, which was all pretty rad.

As it was getting on in the day, we went back to the station to catch a magic train to Nagoya from which our flight would depart in the morning. In Nagoya, we had a quite stop at a yakatori and Sam spent some time in the outdoor onsen at the hotel, actually not a bad way to pass the final evening.

Back to Japan Home