Geoff Brock & Bruce Gamble
         
     

Hiroshima

 
 
 
 

Before leaving Matsuyama, we returned to the room where we had the banquet for breakfast. Yukatas were optional this time, and half our group indeed opted for traditional Japanese dress. The meal was traditional, too: baby eels (they were, in fact, delicious), rice, pickles, miso soup, etc. Narumi-san demonstrated how to roll your own rice sushi in a leaf of dried seaweed using only chopsticks - what amazing dexterity!

At 08:50 we caught the coach to the ferry station. The ryokan hostess boarded with us and made a farewell speech. Then she and her staff all stayed and waved us off until we were out of view. How charming!

The harbour gave great views of the Inland Sea and its many islands.

We caught the fast catamaran ferry to Hiroshima, where we were met by a coach to take us to the Rhiga Royal Hotel.

 

Our room had spectacular views over the city, with the old moated castle and the modern art gallery.

Having settled in to our room, we were soon off for a walking tour of the city. Despite its unfortunate past, it is a vibrant place. The epicentre of the atomic bomb explosion was marked with a memorial, but surprisingly, the area otherwise has no other mark of its significance.
More significant memorials are the A-Bomb Dome building, all that remains of the old city...
...and the Peace Park.

Above Left: The Education Memorial, for those who had to work during the war and missed their education; Middle: The Peace Bell which visitors can ring; Right: The Cenotaph with the inscription "Rest in Peace. We shall never repeat the error".

Below: The Children's Peace Monument with its crane depicting longevity and happiness. It refers to a young girl victim of the bomb who believed that if she made 1,000 paper cranes she would recover from her radiation sickness. In fact, she died, but children from all over the world, touched by her story, still contribute cranes in her memory.

We found the Peace Park and the Museum, which describes the events leading up to the bomb and its horrific consequences, profoundly moving, and yet hopeful.
That evening, Chris proposed we went to an Okonomiyaki (pancake) restaurant for dinner, where we saw our meals being prepared in front of us by very friendly staff. Again, the "all you can drink" option made the evening go with a swing.
 
 
 
©Geoff Brock and Bruce Gamble