June 24

We slept in, until almost 8!! We didn’t get to our hotel and unpacked until after midnight.  

We slept great and had a quick bite at Starbucks. Yes, we know, we’re in Japan, but we didn’t want complicated and they were close, with coffee! 

We got some walking in today—over 11 miles!! We walked all over the area that was the most affected by the atomic bomb, and then edged our way around other parts of Hiroshima. 

Thank you to my shoes, because they are amazing! When we vacationed with friends this past March in Wimberley, Texas, there was a store that featured all of my favorite brands of shoes! These are Merrills, but they have the “barefoot” soles, so are considered low impact, and they are so comfortable.

It’s really hard to express what a person feels when walking around a place that has had something so catastrophic impact it. Hiroshima had about 340,000 people at the time the bomb was dropped.  The atomic bomb took out 140,000 people between August and December 1945, 70,000 on August 6 alone. That doesn’t even count all the thousands and thousands of people that died beyond 1945.  About 70% of the city's buildings were destroyed, and another 7% severely damaged.

Today, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park commemorates the 1945 bombing. In the park are the ruins of Genbaku Dome, one of the few buildings that was left standing near ground zero.  The park also contains a large collection of other monuments.  The Children's Peace Monument is a monument for peace to commemorate Sadako Sasaki and the thousands of child victims. Sadako Sasaki, a young girl, died of leukemia resulting from radiation of the bomb.  There is a great book about Sadako called “Sadako and the Paper Cranes”.  Everywhere in the park hang thousands and thousands of paper cranes.

The Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims was especially sobering. The Hall of Remembrance recreates a view of the A-bombed city seen from ground zero, a space in which visitors can quietly pay tribute to the A-bomb victims and contemplate peace. The Memorial Hall also offers visitors an opportunity to view and listen to materials, such as A-bomb memoirs and survivor testimony videos, and puts the names and exhibits photo portraits of deceased A-bomb victims on public view.  It was especially difficult to listen to stories, and look at exhibits which included personal effects as well as graphic photos.  

The Cenotaph is an arched tomb for those who died because of the bomb, either because of the initial blast or exposure to radiation.

At one end of the park, a large gong, the Peace Bell, actually wants visitors to strike it. Yearly on August 6th, it is sounded at 8:15 AM, the precise time that the bomb was dropped. On other days, passers-by are encouraged to sound it for themselves, which we both did, as did a large group of students on a field trip.  The goal is to bring the message of peace and renewal as the sound reverberates. It is made from the metal of destroyed firearms, and was donated to Hiroshima by the Greek embassy in 1964. The surface of the bell is covered with a borderless map of the world. 

The Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound holds the remains of people who perished in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The underground vault holds the ashes of those 70,000 people who died and whose remains were found in ground zero. The remains of 817 people who have been identified, yet remain unclaimed, also rest in the vault.

We did grab some lunch, some lobster pasta soup which was good, and then visited some other prominent sites including Shukkei-en, a formal Japanese garden, where we fed ginormous carp and wandered around—it was a peaceful walk.  In this garden is a ginkgo tree that is estimated to be over 200 years old; it survived the atomic bomb blast but the blast literally knocked it sideways.  Seeds from this tree have been sent all over the world as a sign of peace!

We also visited Hiroshima Castle, a fortress surrounded by a moat and a park.  Built in 1589 by the powerful feudal lord Mori Terumoto, Hiroshima Castle was an important seat of power in Western Japan.  While it was spared the demolishment that many other castles met during the Meiji Restoration, like the rest of the city, Hiroshima Castle was destroyed by the atomic bomb in 1945. 

Our last stop of the day was the Mitaki Temple. The Shingon Buddhist temple dates back to 809, and is located in a steep, heavily forested valley on the side of Mt Mitaki-yama and takes its name from the three waterfalls within its grounds. We knew we’d probably get their after it closed but assumed, wrongly, that we could at least wander around the grounds. After different modes of transportation to get there, including a nice hike UP to the gates, we discovered that the grounds were also closed. Sigh.

We walked the route back towards our hotel, googling a restaurant that would serve us a Hiroshima speciality.  Hiroshima is known for okonomiyaki, a “pancake” cooked on an iron grill, close to where we could watch them. It is cooked with various ingredients, which are layered rather than mixed together. The layers are typically egg, cabbage, bean sprouts, sliced pork/bacon with a few other items, and noodles, ultimately topped with another layer of egg and a generous dollop of okonomiyaki sauce. It was GOOD!! 

Tomorrow we take a boat ride to Miyajima Island and a train to Nagasaki.