Hiroshima July 2013. Day 1

Three years ago in July of 2013, I had an empty weekend during my study abroad in Osaka, so my friend Chris and I decided to go together on a trip to Hiroshima, Miyajima Shrine, and Takachiho Gorge in Kyushu. I was a lazy-bum three years ago, so I never bothered making a post of my travels. So I have decided that now is the time to catch up on what I should have done years ago. I realize I have done this with a few big events, so I will be posting more stories of my adventures from three years ago on this blog, once again. Please enjoy.

I remember we set out towards Hiroshima after classes were over on a Friday in July 2013. We took a bus to the train station and a local train into Osaka City to Shin-Osaka station where we jumped on a shinkasen to Hiroshima City.

On the way I saw many beautiful landscapes, and even one building that looked like a catholic cathedral. This is an unusual sight in Japan, so I was lucky to snap a picture of it as we sped past it on the shinkansen.

When we got to Hiroshima City we hopped on a train/trolly to our side of the city where our hostel was. We walked straight to our hostel and left our stuff there while we walked around the peace park and the shopping center nearby. This is what a few of the trolly stations looked like through the city, they had grass growing beneath the tracks!

These are some nice views of the city from the train:

And a mandatory manhole cover:

Here are some nice views of the river and a shrine close to our hostel:

Here is a picture showing the Rest House of Hiroshima Peace Park. It was a kimono shop and it is 170 from the hypocenter of the bomb. There were 37 people working in the building at the time the bomb dropped and all of them died with the exception of one man. He had gone into the basement to retrieve something. The basement was made of concrete and withstood the bomb. The man was the only person in the building to survive.

Children's Peace Monument is a popular spot in the park. It is a memorial dedicated to remembering the thousands of children that died as a result of the atomic bomb.

At the base of this monument is a black stone block which reads:

これはぼくらの叫びです　これは私たちの祈りです　世界に平和をきずくための
(Kore wa bokura no sakebi desu. Kore wa watashitachi no inori desu. Sekai ni heiwa o kizuku tame no).
"This is our cry, this is our prayer: for building peace in the world".

This is the Ever Burning Flame. It has a symbolic purpose; it has been burning since 1964 and it will remain burning until there are no more nuclear weapons in the world.

This giant plant!;

This monument is the Memorial Tower to Mobilized Students. It is in memorial of the over 10,000 students that were mobilized and put to work for the war effort during WWII.

Here is the Genbaku Dome. It was one of the few buildings to survive the bombing, and it was the closest. When we were there it was covered in scaffolding, so it wasn't the best view of the building. But, Shouganai.

This was the view from the Aioi Bridge. The Aioi Bridge is in a T-shape and it was the landmark the pilots looked for when dropping the Little Boy bomb.

These are some pictures of the park. It was a large place and beautiful. I have chosen on a few select photos.

This is a burial mound that contains the ashes of over 70,000 unidentified victims of the bomb.

This was the area directly around the Peace Museum.

We saw this man riding a cat bus from the movie My Neighbor Totoro. It was made from cloth and a frame of some kind. Underneath he was riding a bicycle. It was pretty creative, I think.

We went to a shopping mall nearby and stopped at a restaurant which served Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki.

This differs from okonomiyaki in different parts of japan because you make a ring out of the lettuce and ingredients on the skillet, then you spill water into the middle of the ring and use the metal spatulas to continuously push the water back into the center until it starts to cook with the remnants of the ingredients and congeals onto the skillet. Then you can add more ingredients to be cooked in/on top of the okonomiyaki. (Edit: looking back on my photos it does not look like that is the case. I may be remembering wrong. So... shouganai.)

We walked around the mall for a while, and we encountered this street performer. I was super excited when this happened!

I also tried to sneakily take a photograph of a Host Boy, but I was not successful. I had forgotten that I had the flash turned on. He saw me snap his picture and then he started laughing at me.

After that we walked around some more and headed to bed so we could get up early and start the next day. This was what we saw on our way back to the hostel.

This is that shrine after dark, it looks so creepy, I love it!