Hiroshima & Miyajima

We had two days to spend in Hiroshima and Miyajima, which are only about 20 minutes apart on the train. Our hostel was in Miyajima and certainly wasn't as glam as the ones in Kyoto but it was nice enough, and the staff were great.

First we spent the day in Hiroshima, on August 7th, the day after the 66th anniversary of the bombing. On August the 6th they have a big remembrance event and I'm not sure if there were more people than normal around because of that, but it felt fairly busy. We got the tram over to memorial park and disembarked just outside the A-bomb dome, which is the preserved remains of one of the only buildings left standing anywhere near where the bomb went off. In fact it was more or less directly underneath where the bomb went off which is the only reason it is still standing, or so we were told. We wandered up to the museum, which was incredibly well done. It had a detailed account of the history of Hiroshima and the events preceeding and following the bombing. Since the bombing, the city of Hiroshima has played a massive part in campaigning against the use of nuclear weapons, and much of this is documented at the museum - it had copies of letters written in protest of all nuclear weapon testing which has happened since, among other things. There were some interesting sections about what else Hiroshima is doing to campaign against nuclear weapons and the effects of the radiation from the Hiroshima A-bomb. Particularly depressing was the section talking about the improvements to atomic weapons since the Hiroshima bombing, and the damage that the weapons in the world could now do. There was also a section with recovered items from victims such as the charred remains of a little boys lunch in his lunchbox, and a kids tricycle that he was never without, so he was buried with it until it was donated to the museum by his father. All really sad, but very well done.

The next day we spent in Miyajima. We took the ferry over to the island of Miyajima and set off for a wander. Essentially we didn't do alot; we went to look at the floating torii (which at this point in time wasn't floating because the tide was out), which is pretty famous in Japan, and then we climbed to the highest point of the island, took in the view, climbed down and looked at the floating torii, which was now living up to its name. Then we got the ferry back and got our stuff together before heading back to Tokyo. It might not sound like much but the climb up and down the mountain was one of the high points (waheeeeeeeyyy, puns) of our trip, really. There was an awesome stretch of tiny waterfalls on the way down that we managed to take a dip in because it got unbelievably sweaty on the climb. We also saw a snake at the top of the mountain which I thought was pretty cool but Maddy didn't enjoy. I gave her a piggy back down that part of the mountain! The view from the top was well worth the climb.

Quality tune by Thrice.