I had great expectations when I took of to see Hiroshima and the Peace park…
After my stop at Himji Castle, the Shinkansen Nozomi brought me to Hiroshima in just 1½ hours. 336 km. Amazing. From the station in Hriroshima to the Peace Park is another 25 minutes by tram…
Well arrived at the peace park, and the icon, Atomic Bomb Dome, I walked around the park, and felt the pain and relief.
On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, the nuclear bomb ‘Little Boy‘ was dropped on Hiroshima by an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay and The atomic bomb dome was the only structure in Hiroshima, which stood after the bombing. The reason: The bomb detonated 600m above and 160m southeast of the dome, so the blast basically didn’t hit this building… More or less like being in the eye of an hurricane. The building is situated 10m0m from the official center point of Hiroshima – so the american precision is striking.
Now, the building has been restored in a way which shown the damage, but also in a way, where it can be kept forever. The municipality has decided to keep the peace park and Atomic Bomb Dome in perpeptual. Asa reminder of the 1st atomic bomb ever used.
The message is overwelming: The bomb killed everybody and was – with Nagasaki – the direct reason for the end of 2nd world war, and now the motto of Hiroshima is: Peace.
From the peace park I took a boat to Miyajima an island with a spectacular “floating” temple. It turns out, the illusion of a floating temple is only present at high-tide. At low tide, when I arrived, the temple is still grand, but it is a temple and not so much more. But at high tide, when it seems like to be floating, it will be impressive.
Don’t get me wrong: Still very beautiful, but had I known it would be low tide, I would have changed my schedule – in other words: Check tide tables before you go.
The day came to an end, and I had to commute back to Osaka. And I took the train in the wrong direction from the station.. And for the first time ever in Japan I had to wait 15 minutes for the next train. Damn.
Appropos trains and maps. The stations are so big, and with many exits, so it is impossible NOT to loose your bearings – so a map is very good. There are maps on the stations, so you can find your way…
But on each station, the maps are not shown consistent. I.e. the map is almost never showing North upwards. So when you actually get out of the station you have no clue how to get to the destination anyway – not even if you have seen it on a map on Google Maps or Google Earth.
I have spent much time getting out of a station and trying to find my bearings – by walking basically to all four corners of a block only to find out which was the right one…
It is not helped by the streetnames – as few streets have names in japan. Instead the city is divived into Chromes. Each chrome is a square of blocks. Each block in the chrome has a unique number, and each door/house in each block has a unique number too… So a perfectly correct address in Tokyo is:
Tokyo Central Post Office
2-7-2 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo.
However, I haven’t been able to find a system in the numbering, which lead to me walking around for 1 hour to find a specific address – even though it was only 200m from my starting point.
