Hiroshima a beautiful city of contrasts

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Everybody knows Hiroshima due to its terrible place in history. In fact our prompt to come here was to visit the Peace park and museum. There is little doubt that its past has had a profound impact on its people and yet there is a strong sence of peace and hope. Hiroshima is an excellent example of a place that is not dwelling on the past but forging a positive future. Even the destruction of the city has been turned to its advantage as Hiroshima has been rebuilt with wide tree lined streets and beautiful parks and gardens.

Our hotel room overlooks a tree lined boulevard that runs to the Peace park not far away. At night this boulevard is transformed by elaborate Christmas light displays and is full of families enjoying the sight. The areas along the rivers have an almost Parisian feel, quite unexpected but totally delightful.

Yes we did visit the museum with its documentation of the horrors of atomic weapons, but the Peace park is a place of serenity and hope. Everywhere we saw examples of support for peace from all over the world, often utilising paper cranes.

By somewhat random chance we discovered that it was possible to take a tour of the Mazda museum and assembly line. Amazingly we managed to reserve spots on the only remaining english language tours for the month. This free tour was a rare chance to view a Japanese automotive assembly line, their largest production centre globally. On the tour we made friends with a couple from Israel. The 7 kilometer long site included it own port, power station, dormitory suburb, fire station, bus system, water treatment plants and multi story storage for completed vehicles in addition to the production lines. They also had the longest privately owned bridge in the world. All very impressive.

As always we continue to find delicious food and the people to be friendly and helpful.

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Comments

[Anita]

keep it up :-)
Still enjoying all of your trip posts. Funny that we were in the same town (Hiroshima) just 4 months ago.