An Hour in Iwakuni

It was only a short train ride from Miyajima to Iwakuni, the final intended sightseeing destination in my trip. Although Iwakuni is more of a quaint little town with nice scenery than a huge touristic area on its own, I'm far from being the first visitor to include it in my voyage to this side of Japan.
 Unfortunately, my time was about to run out, and I had only the chance to get a glimpse of Iwakuni before having to head back. I reassured myself that one hour was just enough to catch sight of the town's number one attraction.

The beautiful, ancient Kintai bridge has been destroyed and rebuilt several times in the course of the last 400 years, and figures in quite a few old paintings. Its structure is unique and the sight of it is kind of inspiring. But you have to pay a toll to cross it or merely to walk on it, and that's kind of a shame.

Notice that white structure in the mountain? That's the Iwakuni Castle. It's actually possible to go right up to it using the rope-way, or your own two feet, if you fancy yourself a soldier or something. I would've done so if not for the pressing time. Now that's where you put a castle, right? As much as the ones in the middle of the towns or cities are nice, this one propbably commands a much better view if you're standing at its top. Ruler of Iwakuni, smart smart smart smart.


And with that, my trip to the Hiroshima area came to an end! From Iwakuni, it was a train back to Hiroshima, a bus to the airport, and a plane back to Haneda airport in Tokyo and my own cozy bed, leaving me eager for the next trip already.

Romantic Miyajima

You recognize this?

Flash forward a day and I'm in Miyajima. The ride there is a real short one from Hiroshima, and especially so by train, so there truly is no excuse not the make the trip. From the train station, hop on a ferry, and you're on Miyajima. The large orange Torii gate is famous worldwide for being right in the bay and designates the entrance to Itsukushima shrine.

As much as it was tempting to sleep in at the hotel a little longer, I'm glad I came in the early morning, because the island attracts tourists like crazy. But that's not the only reason the time of your visit is important.
 The Torii and the shrine being so close to the bay, its appearance is greatly affected by tide. When the tide is at its highest, the Itsukushima shrine seems to float in the water, so perfectly is it constructed that thousands of small poles that support the structure disappear entirely under the surface.
 Come the lowest tide, however, it's possible to walk straight up to the Torii and stand beneath it.
 Very much like Nara, the local deer on Miyajima are completely accustomed to human presence and live side by side with people. They walk up and down the same streets, demanding food with very little reluctance. I've seen one stroll right to the door of a still-opening shop, either curious as to what was inside, or perhaps the doe was a regular herself. A nonchalant shopkeeper walked out the shop and past the deer like she couldn't give a shit. As in Nara, you can walk up to them and pet them if you like.
 Though many stop at the shrine, Miyajima has one more sight I can definitely recommend as a must to be seen. Hop on the rope-way and up the island's tallest peak, Mount Misen. It won't take you to the top, however. You'll have to muster the gut to hike a little, but it isn't a difficult one. Do it. I tell you, it's worth it, dammit. From the summit is easily one of the best panoramas I've seen in Japan. 

180 degree panorama. Click to enlarge.

The summit of Mount Misen overlooks the Seto inland sea, which in itself contains dozens of other islands that can are easily spotted in the horizon. So, too, is the city of Hiroshima.
 You've made the hike? Great. Now, there's one more thing you have to do to enjoy Miyajima at its fullest.
- Go to the top of the summit's observatory if you haven't already.
- Give someone your camera.
- Go back to the bottom of the observatory.
- Climb a rock.
- Strike a pose.

You win.

Reliving the Bombing of Hiroshima

That's as unappealing a title as you can get, but it's the honest truth. Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Museum doesn't exist to merely inform you of the tragic events of August 6th 1945. In order to fully comprehend the events that took place on that day, one must be brought to relive the day the sun fell out of the sky and on top of the heads of the citizens of Hiroshima.
Frankly, it was kind of hard to take pictures here. They're allowed, for certain, but it kind of feels inappropriate to do anything but look at the showcases in a mixed sense of wonder and dread at the hell these people were put through.

A display of Hiroshima before and after the bombing. Notice the bomb dome from the last post.

 The Peace Memorial Museum's main focal point is to show the point of view of the civilians who suffered the consequences of the attack. To start with, many of the halls of the museum are lined with the preserved clothing of dead children, with plaques indicating their names, ages, and the circumstances under which they died. Also preserved are samples of the skin that peeled from their bodies and the hair that fell from their scalps. It's as grim as it sounds, and it's gripping to read about healthy fourth grade girls who died in a man-made hellfire, wearing the dresses they proudly made themselves.
 And really, it just goes downhill. Visitors are given the chance to read, listen, and look at the preserved remnants of the bombing, such as melted bottles and pieces of glass hurled so violently from the shock wave that they sank into concrete. Brick wall sections have been moved to the museum to show that the scorching flames imprinted upon them the shadows of the people who were atomized where they stood.

Nightmare fuel, and to think people lived through this.

But to top it off is this one, hellish display recreating a scene from mere moments after the bomb was dropped, showing people in tattered clothes searching for loved ones in the wreckage. Those aren't strips of cloth hanging from their arms. It's their peeling flesh.

 Just like the rest of the Peace Memorial Park, though, the museum has an underlying message of hope for the coming generations to reach out to their governments and protest against the usage of the weaponry that took away 220,000 lives after a single use. The final walk out of the museum is a hall dedicated to the survivors, whose eye-witness accounts and drawings serve as a final plea to take home what you learned and to never forget the atrocities that have been lived in a time not so long ago.

Hiroshima is Tragic, Peaceful

Work has granted me a week off to do whatever may please me with, and I decided to spend the first few days in another of Japan's bigger cities. I hopped on a plane to the western Chugoku Province and found myself in Hiroshima. Have you heard of Hiroshima? It's the first city in human history to have an atomic bomb dropped on it. That happened during World War II. Remember that? Yeah. Well Hiroshima hasn't forgotten about that.

 When I was in my uncle's estate in America for a visit, he asked me if Japanese hated Americans for dropping the nukes on them. He was certain they did, and it came to him as a bit of a surprise to know that the average Japanese person actually...doesn't hate the United States of America. At a quick glance, the cultural authorities in Hiroshima are no different. In the last 70 years, Hiroshima has become an advocate of world peace rather than international hatred. That doesn't mean they've set the bombing aside, far from that. You can't walk a hundred meters in Hiroshima without there being a panel saying that this bridge or that bank was blown up and rebuilt after the bomb fell.

Sadly enough, most of Hiroshima's more touristic attractions are centered around this fact. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, known locally as the Atomic Bomb Dome, is the sole remaining structure within the blast range of the US Army's Little Boy to not have been torn down or completely eradicated in the explosion. It alone stands as a testament to the destructive power of nuclear weapons. All the other structures in the vicinity of the blast were actually wiped off the face of the city, save for their bases. The only reason this one mostly stood was because the blast was detonated almost directly over it, pushing the columns of the structure downwards rather than outwards. Once, it served as a promotion hall for industrial products. It's Hiroshima's most recognized landmark now, sitting at the outer fringe of the Peace Park, also dedicated to the lost lives of men, women and children during and following the bombing.

The Cenotaph Tomb

The Hiroshima Peace Park itself is surely something that can't be missed while visiting the city. It's a beautiful green space speckled with monuments meant to bring hope to humanity. It is, as a whole, a message conveying that, through the sheer tenacity of people working hand in hand, something beautiful can rise from the most desolate ashes of what's been destroyed.
The center piece of the park is the Cenotaph of the victims. One can't tell by looking at it, but the monument is actually a tomb, directly under which is a stone chest. Inside it is a register of the over 220,000 victims of the bomb, either as a result of the initial blast or its radiation. Every year at this site, a speech is given in their memories, and at 8:15 AM on August 6th, a moment's silence is observed.

Also prominently featured is the Children's Memorial, built in memory of the younger victims of the bomb. Featured at its summit is Sadako, the young girl who lost her life to Leukemia caused by radiation exposure.
The story of the girl goes that she firmly believed in the story that whoever folded one thousand paper cranes would have any one wish granted to them. The popular version of the story is that, in her hospital bed, she folded cranes in hopes of reaching one thousand and getting back her health, but ran out of time at the count of 644.
 Her friends and family folded the remaining 356 and buried the thousand cranes with her. Today, cranes are still folded and brought to the memorial in her honor, representing the wishes of those who desire to live in a world without the threat of nuclear holocaust. The monument has many duplicates around the world.

Other similar monuments cover the grounds of the park, dedicated to others such as the Korean victims, with various symbolic meanings relating to world peace. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum also sits in the center of the park, for those seeking to draw a deeper knowledge about the facts of the bombing. I'll go into that another day. It's incredibly sobering and fringes on nightmare-inducing.

Hiroshima Castle

Exiting the confines of the park, Hiroshima also has its own Castle not too far away from the city center. The construction itself is mostly wooden. Like almost everything else in this sector of the city, though, the original Hiroshima Castle, too, was atomized by the Little Boy. This reconstructed version was completed over a decade later, complete with its own moat, just as the original structure used to have. From what I hear, you get a pretty good view of the city from its top, but it was well past time for that by the time I got there.

Well, what do you think? Pretty depressing all in all, isn't it? Well the worst is yet to come.