One of my biggest inspirations for wanting to go to Japan, was Grace and Hugh’s Japan blog when they honeymooned there a few years ago. It was so well written, informative, funny; all the things this blog is not. Their write up of Hiroshima comes with a warning that there’d be no humour. Well, I can’t promise that. What if I fall upon a particular humorous pun, am I just meant to ignore it?! Ok, ok, FINE. No jokes in this bit. I won’t even do a sarcastic bit in italics. You can’t joke about anything these days.
So, this was a long day. Emotionally and physically draining. We woke up really early for once; Julie with a hangover after her 2 sakes. I mean – a GIF of a cat can make me cry if I’ve got a hangover, so lord only knows how she’d get through today. We headed straight back to the A-Dome. Owing to our early rise, we pretty much had the area to ourselves, which was rather eerie. Seeing the dome in the light, you could really appreciate the lack damage done to the structure; yes, there was a tonne of rumble all strewn around the base of the building, but it was in remarkable shape for something built in 1915, never mind one that had a massive bomb explode above it. I’m sure you all know the story of the atomic bomb during WW2. I can’t remember the exact story, but I think Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (I’m sorry. I mean – it doesn’t even make sense) decided to drop a bomb on Japan, and it exploded directly above the dome, and because the blast went outwards, the dome remained relatively intact. Elsewhere there was absolute devastation; 80,000 or so people, mostly civilians, killed instantly, and they believe between 129,000 to 226,000 died later. Whether that was a day later or 50 years later, the numbers are astronomical. Walking around the dome, it’s so hard to envisage what happened. The surrounding area is built up with modern buildings, houses, and parks, with the faint hum of rush hour traffic in the background. Just across the river is the memorial park, which we wandered around, soaking in the sombre mood that hung on the area like a fog. The memorials were beautiful and poignant as you would expect. Interestingly, any plaques we read laid little blame on the Americans, and if they did it was 50/50 with blame for the Japanese too. The overarching theme was peace; the world must be denuclearised, to learn from past mistakes. Incidentally, we visited here the day that Jo Swinson was asked if she would fire a nuclear weapon, and she answered ‘yes’ with a smile, with little further thought.
We headed inside the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims, which once again, was completely empty but for us. As you walk into the main hall, you spiral downwards anti-clockwise, to symbolise going back in time. Events leading up to the bombing are scrawled on the walls until you reach the bottom, opening out into a huge spherical room. Above you, 140,000 tiles which come together to create a photograph of the aftermath of the city. You can spot the A-dome, and maybe a few more buildings, but mostly the city is flattened. Naturally, it was here that Julie’s hangover caught up with her. Pft, I don’t know, crying in the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims? How embarrassing!
Through to the next room was even sadder – a huge TV screen hung on the wall, showing pictures of the dead, complete with their name, occupation, age, cause of death (such as cancer, radiation poisoning, etc). We just stood staring as the screen cycled through so many pictures; young mothers, grandpas, babies. Some death dates were 1945. Some were 2019.
I mean – where can you go from here? A 7-Eleven. Now then, who’s been reading all my blogs, eh? Cast your mind back to Shibuya; remember Julie had that delicious ‘cheese corndog’. Ok well, I was perusing the counter and I spotted a corndog myself. I cast my mind back to that day, Julie’s teeth sinking deep into the breaded mozzarella. She let me have a taste and it was heaven. So, I wanted in. I bought the bastard. We started walking and I bit into it. Sausage. Wait, WHAT. But.. this isn’t right! I’m a vegetarian, you idiot! I spat it out, and gave the rest to Julie. It was only 5 or so seconds that I realised, hey wait, a corndog famously is made of sausage and I’d momentarily forgotten this and thought it’d be made of cheese. NOW who’s the idiot?
We arrived at the ferry port and bought our tickets. It was time to get on the water, and make the short trip to Miyajima Island. Thankfully, nothing sad every happened there, so the lols might just come rolling back in; seatbelts on!
Thanks to a spot of research, we knew that the famous Itsukushima Shrine, the huge gate that’s just plonked in the sea, is covered in scaffolding. Head to toe. We almost decided against the island, but were told it was worth going anyway, and by jove it was! After stepping off the ferry, we were met by deer again. These neanderthals couldn’t even bow! But they were awfully cute. One literally ate Julie’s map of the island out of her hands. I’m unsure what the nutritional value was, but they seemed to enjoy. A nice waiter from the restaurant just behind us brought out a brand new map for us; kudos to you, sir.
We had a wander around the busy streets, ducking into shops and grabbing ourselves a sandwich and hot chocolate. There were a lot of shrines and temples compacted around here at the foothills of Mount Misen (there’s a Yorkshire joke in there somewhere). So yeah, who knows what all these shrines and temples were called (Google does) but they were all fun and nice and great. No but really, it was a lovely route to the foot of the mountain and some of the most diverse temples we’d come across so far. I was a particular fan of the stone ornamental buddhas we found, each with a tiny knitted hat.
We finally arrived at the beginning of the mountain path. There was a sign that advised the hike would take around 120 minutes, with a cable car at the top. It was around 3pm at this point, so we decided there should be just enough light to get up there for sunset, and then the last cable car back down (5.30pm). It became immediately apparently that 2 hours of climbing stairs is warm work, even if the actual temperature is cold. We removed so many layers, that we were both practically dragging walk-in wardrobes behind, which only made us warmer. What a quandary! We eventually reached the top, and much to our delight it had all been worth it. Amongst the boulder rocks, we had panoramic views of both the island and Hiroshima. It was peaceful and beautiful.
As you can see, the light was fading, but we had ample time to walk over to the cable car. Except – it was on the other side of the bloomin’ mountain, wasn’t it. We did a bit of a walk-run-walk-run-walk and managed to get there in time. By the time we were in the cable car, it was pitch black. Back on the ground, we walked back to the port to get a ferry home, but not before finding a deer who fancied a sit-down meal.
We made our way back to the main station at Hiroshima, hungrier than we’d ever been before. We dropped down a floor or two to find a foodhall, with the entire room smelling delicious. Seriously, I could have licked the walls, pal. We decided on okonomiyaki for the first time. Or should I say okonomiyaki, amiright?! We sat against the counter, the smoke billowing into our faces, as the cooks made the food right in front of our very eyes. Julie was screwing her face up as they threw on 739 bottles of ketchup, and 1,291 sachets of BBQ sauce, but thankfully the finished product was something special. One of our favourite meals. After this, we had a long trip back to Kyoto, and grabbed ourselves so well deserved sleep (if I do say so myself).
15 days in Japan. 