Having a blast in Hiroshima

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I know, I know, I shouldn’t have called this entry that but I’ve heard it so many times since I’ve told people that I was coming to Hiroshima so I had to include it. OK I hope it works this time, I wrote an entry yesterday but for some reason when I tried to submit it there said there was an error and my entry was erased, I didn’t have time to write another one so I’m including it in today’s one. Hopefully I’ll be able to update this fairly regularly as I don’t want to be writing a whole weeks worth of experiences at one time, it would be too long! And I’m a poor backpacker in an expensive country, so time is money!

I left my new hometown of Hakodate on Friday 5th Aug around midday, with a huge backpack, a wallet full of money (well, half full!) and a big smile on my face anticipating the experiences of the next 2 months. I caught a bus to the airport and because I knew I would be arriving at night in Hiroshima I thought I would take a jacket with me, but when I left Hakodate it was really hot so I just carried it. It wasn’t until I was about to board the plane that I realized I didn’t have my jacket, I’d left it on the bus! I was so angry with myself, I loved that jacket. I was hoping that it wasn’t a bad omen for the rest of my trip but so far so good, nothing else has happened (and don’t worry Mum, nothing will!).

I had to go via Tokyo to reach Hiroshima, and had 3 hours to kill at Tokyo airport while I waited for my next flight. I was hoping there would be an Internet café or something but no such luck. So I spent 3 hours in the departure lounge people watching, it was actually quite interesting, you get all sorts in Tokyo, and that was just the airport. You can learn a lot by being the creep in the background watching everyone!

I didn’t arrive in Hiroshima until 8pm. It was a long day of traveling. I was surprised at how hot it still was in Hiroshima, 30 degrees at 8pm! And Japan's heat is very humid not dry like back home so it feels a lot hotter than it actually is and I was sweating constantly.

I had a map of where my accommodation was and there were still people bustling around the city so I decided to walk. Well finding the place was fine but it was a lot further than I thought, took 30 minutes. Because it was still so hot and my backpack is ridiculously heavy, when I arrived at my accommodation I had sweat pouring off me. The guy at the front desk took one look, laughed and shaking his head said, “You shouldn’t have walked”. Yeah thanks, now you tell me! I finished the night off by eating my dinner on the banks of the river watching a peace concert.

Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and each year they hold a Peace Memorial ceremony. The ceremony started at 8am and I expected there to be lots of people so I planned to get there around 7am to get a good seat, I arrived at quarter past and about 80% of the seats were gone, all the ones under cover gone of course so I had to sit in the sun, it was already so hot, like 26 degrees I think.

I was quite shocked at how many foreigners there were, but I suppose living in Hakodate, where you’re lucky to see another foreigner once a month, doesn’t help. I’m not used to seeing blonde, brown and red hair anymore! Hiroshima is a big city so every couple of minutes or so you can catch a glimpse of one or two. They’re actually quite easy to spot, not only are foreigners usually a lot taller but like I said their hair stands out amongst the sea of black. But back to the ceremony, a few opening addresses were given and at 8.15am, at the exact moment 60 years earlier when the bomb was dropped we had a moments silence and they rang the bells of peace. Although it was incredibly hot when I heard those bells I got a cold shiver through my body. To think I was standing on the spot where so many lives were taken, where so much suffering and destruction happened, was very intense. After that the Mayor of Hiroshima gave his ‘Peace Declaration’, which is given every year in the hope that nobody will ever have to go through what the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did ever again. His last words were (to the people who have died): “ Please rest peacefully; for we will not repeat the evil”. After that 1000 white doves were released in the name of peace. To be able to say that I was there at the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb in Hiroshima is a memory I will never forget. I would definitely recommend to anyone to come and see the ceremony at least once.

The ceremony is held in an area of Hiroshima that was completely devastated by the bombing and has since then been turned into the “Peace Park”. There are monuments and plaques all around the park, so after the ceremony I spent a few hours wandering around looking at them. One of them is the Children’s Memorial, which was constructed in the memory of all the children who died, and one little girl in particular called Sadako. Sadako was 2 at the time of the bombing and although she survived it she developed leukemia (sp?) as a result of the radioactive aftereffects, and died at 12. Sadako believed that if she folded 1000 paper cranes her wish would come true: to live. Unfortunately she didn’t make it to 1000, but fell just short at 900 and something. Her friends decided to finish the job in her memory and as a consequence, even to this day, people from all over the world fold paper cranes and bring them to the memorial. There are hundreds of thousands of them, some even displayed near the memorial. I won’t tell you about all the monuments because I could go on all day but I will tell you about the Peace Memorial Museum.

The images I saw and the stories I read in the museum about the victims of the bombs is something I will never forget. At one point when I was looking at a photo of one woman who had been severely burned I wanted to look away, but I didn’t because this woman couldn’t look away, she couldn’t walk out of the museum into the sun and forget, this was her reality. Some of the photos I saw of the victims, the ones who had skin hanging from them, the charred bodies, the small children who were lying on a bed so burned, so unrecognizable, just waiting to die were really eye-opening. Before you see those you wouldn’t think it was humanly possible what they went through. There was also an exhibit showing Hiroshima before the bombing and after the bombing. Everything was turned to dust and rubble for miles and miles. There was nothing left, plants died, people died, buildings disintegrated. The ground near the hypocenter of the bomb reached 3000 -4000 degrees Celsius just after it went off, nothing that close survived, it was a vast wasteland. It actually reminded me of the images shown on TV after the tsunami, everything gone. Nature can be cruel, but man can be crueler.

Living in a western country we don’t learn about the Japanese side of the war, about the innocent victims. These people were civilians, mainly women and children because the men were at war, why did this happen? Don’t get me wrong I know the Japanese did horrible things too, in fact the next section of the museum deals with the political side of the war, and it states that Japan also inflicted pain and suffering on other nations and that both sides did horrible things, but that now we should work towards peace. But we in the west don’t learn about these things. They put a movie out about the innocent victims of Pearl Harbour, what about the innocent victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The museum was a very sombering experience so when I emerged 3 hours later with a heavy heart I decided to go and see some other tourist places. I went to Hiroshima castle and it was interesting to learn about the rest of Hiroshima’s history, the castle wasn’t the original built thousands of years ago because that one was destroyed in the bomb (you can still see the foundations though) but it was still good. I also went to some traditional Japanese gardens, it was a beautiful place to walk. Looking at the pond, walking over wooden bridges and stone steps, very Japanese!

In the night they let go thousands of paper lanterns along the river in Hiroshima in memory of the people who died so I went to watch that and then they had another concert, a bigger one so I watched that for a while too. All in all, the day was very awe-inspiring and eye opening, something that won’t be forgotten in a hurry, but I am glad I came. I will leave you with the words of a girl who was 8 years old at the time of the bombing:
“When an atomic bomb falls
Day becomes night
And people become ghosts”

But the memory of those ghosts still lives on in Hiroshima.
Peace!

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Photos

A-Bomb Dome
Close-up. All thats left of this building

Memorial cranes
Just a handful of the colourful cranes on display

60th anniversary
Outside the Peace Park and Museum