Highlight from Week 3: Hiroshima

Apologies to Kobe, but Hiroshima has to be my favourite Japanese city thus far. The last time we visited was via six long, slow hours of JR rail in the middle of winter. This time, in the first days of the cherry-blossom season, we travelled in speed and style aboard the Shinkansen, and therefore still had the whole day to sight-see.

Shukkeien Garden
(Click for slideshow)

Much of our sight-seeing was done on foot. We crossed the Kyobashi-gawa river west of the JR station, and made our way to Shukkeien Garden. Originally built for the local warlord in the 17^th century, the Garden was destroyed in the 1945 bombing, after which it was rebuilt. Teachers have told me that Shukkeien isn’t the best Japanese garden in the country, but we thought it was pretty spectacular.

Hiroshima Castle
(Click for slideshow)

After lunch under a grove of cherry-blossoms, we walked further west to Hiroshima Castle. Like Shukkeien, and much else in Hiroshima, this 16^th-century building also fell victim to the bomb, and what stands in its place is a 1958 reconstruction. The foundations of pre-1945 buildings can still be seen, and the tower itself houses a museum and observation deck giving a decent view of the city. In the outer bailey there was a food stand where we introduced Emma’s parents to takoyaki, and beside the moat stood an Australian eucalypt which had survived the bombing.

Peace Park and Memorial Museum
(Click for slideshow)

From the Castle we walked south to Peace Park. The first image to greet us was the A-bomb Dome itself, silhouetted against the cloudy sky. The Dome stands at the northern end of what is a spacious and magnificent urban park—the “Kings Park” of Hiroshima, if you will. At the southern end is the Peace Memorial Museum, which provides a harrowing guided tour of the events and aftermath of August 6, 1945 (though it provides too little detail of the reasons for Japan’s involvement in the war, in my view). We came here in January, but were pressed for time, so it was good to be able to give the exhibition a more thorough viewing.

Our flashy hotel, the Grand Prince (no slideshow)

We ate dinner at Okonomi-mura, which is a complex of okonomiyaki stalls housed on two floors of a building in the Shintenchi district, then caught a tram from the station to our hotel down by the harbour. In defiance of hotel policy we smuggled in conbini food for breakfast, rather than taking out a mortgage for the privilege of eating in the hotel dining room. The next morning we took a ferry from the hotel to Miyajima.

Miyajima (Click for slideshow)

I was glad to return to Miyajima, because on our last visit we arrived later in the day, and I wasn’t able to climb the 500m+ Mt. Misen. This time I hiked up the northern face, while Emma took her parents to the summit in the cable car. I don’t think the photos really tell the story, but the view from up there is spectacular. Once again we encountered the friendly local inhabitants—the monkeys and deer—though the latter were a little too friendly, sadly, for Emma and her dad.

Mt Misen
(Click for slideshow)