I was in Japan for the first time recently and I got myself a Japan Rail (JR) Pass for a week to get a round the country. Just going from Tokyo to Osaka and back I was saving money, but I made much more use of it than that. As you would.
While I was staying in Osaka, I thought about where I could go on a day trip and realized Hiroshima was pretty close on the Shinkansen Bullet Trains. The journey takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes. You can actually get the High Speed Bullet Train and do the journey in an hour or so less, but my JR Pass didn’t cover that, so I had to make do with just the Bullet Train.
On the journey you wonder what its like. Is it safe? Surely there’s still some radiation in the air? Will the locals think I’m a bit of a schadenfreude for wanting to visit such a horrific historical site?
Anyway, I got to Hiroshima early with the intention of spending a full day trying to enjoy the place. It was late April and as with everywhere in Japan at that time, the weather was perfect.
The greetings at the train station were second to none. I walked out, not really knowing where to go until a free tour guide came up to me and gave me excellent advice in English about where to go and what would be best for my amount of time. It was a sign of things to come, because Hiroshima is really trying its best to welcome visitors.
I didn’t have much time but my first stop was Hiroshima Castle. It’s actually a replica of the original castle because the original one was destroyed by the atomic bomb. The new one is a beautiful castle that overlooks the city.
It was constructed in 1958 and it looks exactly like it did before that fateful day. Going to the top of the castle gives you panoramic views of not just the city but way beyond. It’s a great way to spend an hour or two.
My next stop was the Genbaku Atomic Dome and the Peace Park and Memorial Museum. I decided to walk there as it was a beautiful day, and I wanted to experience the atmosphere of the city. It was a Sunday, and like most places on Sundays it was quiet, but there is something more peaceful about Hiroshima.
As I approached the Dome Tower, I felt emotional. I was here, right next to what is arguably the most devastating historical event of the 20th century, and maybe even history. To think that less than a century before I was there the devastation that occurred in a split second after the Atomic Bomb detonated some 600 metres above ground was really an indescribable feeling.
The Atomic Bomb actually detonated in the air to help cause maximum damage. It’s thought that an atomic bomb would waste a lot of energy exploding onto the ground, and so at 8:15am on 6th August 1945 Enola Gay dropped and detonated the most catastrophic piece of technological warfare ever known.
Eye witnesses said they saw an a brilliant flash of light followed by a mighty sonic boom, and followed by an immediate firestorm. Immediately, 70,000-80,000 people died. Almost everything in the 6km radius was disintegrated. Anybody who were ‘lucky’ enough to survive had massive burns and thousands more died as time went on. An estimate of about 150,000 died because of that fateful day.
Amazingly the Dome Tower that was right in the hypocentre of the Atomic blast, survived. Well some of it. Almost everything around it had been blasted to smithereens, but somehow the bell tower stood defiant against the bomb. It still stands today with some structural help and is a symbol of peace and its an emotional time spent viewing it.
I walked through the Peace Park to the museum, and as you might imagine it’s a very thorough introduction of what happened. There are burnt relics of things that survived that day, like melted steel, roof tiles, people’s clothes, but the thing that really struck me was a burnt out child’s tricycle.
Hiroshima deserves more than 10 hours; I had spent much more time in the hypocentre area than had planned and I didn’t get to see any more of the city as I was in a rush to get back to the train station.
When I left the museum, there were some peaceful protestors there, and there was one guy with a sign saying ‘FREE HUGS’. I looked at him and smiled and thought how nice. He looked at me and offered his arms for a hug and so I did. I went up to him and hugged him. The crazy thing is I actually felt a bit silly at first, but when I hugged him I felt like crying because I actually felt happy again.
Peace!