The next day, Saturday, we woke up and got to the Hiroshima Peace Museum right as they opened. And I saw this couple walking their pet raccoon.
The museum is a truly harrowing place. It tells the story of what happened to Hiroshima before, during, and after America dropped the atomic bomb on them.
This was a model showing how Hiroshima City looked before and after the bomb dropped.
And this model shows exactly where the bomb was in its fall when it exploded. It is represented by the red ball. It exploded in the air before impact, around 2000 feet above the ground if I remember correctly.
To this day I remember the horrific images of the aftermath. I remember the photographs of people who had the patterns on their kimono burned into their skin because of the intense heat and light from the bomb. I remember the “Flash Shadows” left on stone and pavement. These were the shadows of the people who were standing there. The light from the atomic bomb was so bright that it bleached the stone and burned permanent shadows into the stone. Imagine that for a second.
I remember a box of fingernails from a junior high school student, because that was all that remained of her.
With all the horrors that are on display in this museum, I think it is one of the most important places in the world and everyone should go. It really helps you understand the gravity of the atomic bomb and the horrors of war. It also helps paint a picture about why Japan is very anti-nuclear energy (considering the meltdown of the power plant in Fukushima five years ago, it’s not hard to understand why.) By the end of the museum I was crying. It is just a terrible part of history.
With all that said, the museum does a great job about being fair to America. They state the reasons America dropped the nuclear bombs on them and they have a very matter-of-fact attitude about the whole situation and less of a pointing-finger vibe. I never felt like I should be ashamed to be American in this museum, and considering the nature of the museum, that is definitely a bonus. The museum ends with a plea to find alternatives to nuclear energy and strive for peace on earth.
After the Peace Museum we stopped to get some breakfast.
After that we hopped on a local train and went to a town about a half hour away and then hopped on a ferry which took us across a little bay to the island of Miyajima. This is where there is a famous Shinto Shrine where the torii gate is far out into the bay and in the water.
On this island there are a ton of deer. They are not afraid of humans and will come up to everyone. Unfortunately they come up to you begging for food, because tourists like to feed them. There are signs all over the island asking people to not feed the deer, but it doesn’t really matter. The deer eat human food and it makes them sick and unhealthy. The deer look pretty gross, actually. Their fur is patchy and dirty looking. They definitely don’t look healthy. But they are nice for the most part.
One deer came up to me looking for food, and when I didn’t have any to give him he started eating my shirt. This startled me and I screamed a little bit.
One thing the tourists have taught the deer to do is bow to you when they beg for food. I got a few deer to bow to me, it was so cute!
Here I found a teeny little baby deer that got separated from its mom. So small!
While we were there there was a wedding going on. There were a lot of guests, and they had a section of the shrine blocked off for the wedding party. It must have been a bit awkward to have thousands of tourists present at your wedding, but, I guess it is to be expected if you are going to have your wedding at such a popular tourist destination.
I just love all the beautiful kimono the wedding guests are wearing!
There was also a priest performing a traditional dance for the newlywed couple.
Here are some photographs of the beautiful shrine that seems to be floating above the water.
Some miscellaneous sights from the island.
The beach was so lovely we decided to relax for a bit and play in the sand and water.
There were also a few tourist shops on the island that sold various omamori, clothes and traditional items.
I saw this little bit of Engrish next to the velvet wall scrolls.
The island has this lovely, towering pagoda as well as Senjokaku (Hokoku) Shrine behind it..
The island also has a big mountain that you can hike up. We were going to take a lift up to the top of the mountain and hike back down, but the lift was currently out of order, so we decided to hike up instead.
This wouldn’t have been a problem normally, but it was getting late in the day and we were afraid of the sun setting while we were still up there. The last ferry left at 8 p.m. as well, so we knew we had to hurry.
There was a gorgeous river running along the trail along the base of the mountain. The main thing I remember about hiking this mountain was that the entire trail was steps. It was a difficult hike for that reason, just endless stairs.
It was beautiful and when we got to the top we took some amazing photographs of the scenery, but man, was that hike a bit of a pain.
There was a shine and viewing platform at the top as well as a small trail that went on top of some rocks. There were steps carved into stone and a little tunnel that lead to another viewing place.
On the way back down, I could have probably made it to the bottom within twenty minutes. My companion, Chris, however, had bad knees and had to go down the mountain of stairs slowly. I was trying to hurry him as the sun was setting and many signs around the mountain told us that it got dangerous when the sun set, but it could not be helped. It took us about 40 minutes to get down the mountain. We made it to the bottom with the sun set behind the mountain and about ten minutes or so left of light.
We used that last ten minutes of daylight to take some evening pictures around the torii gate. Because it was evening, the tide had gone out and you could walk right up to the torii gate in the water.
I will always be 12 at heart.
We spoke with some other people around there and then hopped on the ferry and made our way back to Hiroshima to the hostel where we were staying.
Gotta love that Engrish.
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