Taking the Bullet Train (Shinkansen) to Hiroshima to visit the Peace Memorial Park

 

The Hiroshima Cenotaph with a view of the reflection pond and eternal flame behind, and the A-Bomb Dome in the far background.

Thursday, November 20th

Our bullet train pulling into Kyoto station.

Alan and I planned a trip to Hiroshima on Deidre’s rest day. This required a reservation ticket from Kyoto station, which we purchased the evening before. So, we took the train from Nijo station to Kyoto station and waited for our bullet train to arrive at 9 a.m. It would be an hour-and-45 minute ride with about 4 stops between, which included Osaka.

Our seats were very comfortable. We found the upper shelves interesting. The ride was so smooth, nothing shifted or moved above. 

I think two things surprised me and Alan on the ride down. First, the number of tunnels the train needed to go through. We didn’t picture Japan as hilly as it is. And, two, the size of Osaka. We felt like we were traveling through the LA area with non-stop sprawl. California and Japan are very similar in land size, but Japan has 124 million people compared to California with 40 million.

At the Hiroshima station, we were able to get on a tram that went straight to the Peace Memorial Park.

A shrine at the park entrance.

The A-Bomb Dome

The name of this building was the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. It was like a convention center on a small scale. During WWII, it was conscripted by the military and used as a headquarters. 

 

A replica of the original building in the museum.

A replica of how it looks today.

The reason why this building wasn’t completely flattened was because the atom bomb was dropped directly over it, and exploded 400 meters above it, sending the blast downward and outward around it. 

A panographic photo of the Peace Memorial Park which is located across the river from the A-Bomb Dome. 

The Ancient Zero-Mile Marker

This was an interesting little stone marker that survived the bomb. It was located on the corner by Aioi Bridge. It is the historic center of ancient Hiroshima Castle town, being at the intersection of the main overland traffic routes. As a result, the distance from Hiroshima was always calculated from this point. When the prefectural system was established in 1871, a wooden post was placed here as the zero milestone of Hiroshima, and in 1889 the spot was marked by this stone pillar. The pillar survived the bomb, and it is ironic the epicenter of the A-bomb was so close to the zero milestone of the city. 

We needed to cross Aioi Bridge to access the park. This bridge was the intended target for the bomb.

View from the bridge on the north side.

View from the bridge on the south side looking towards the coast.

The A-Bomb Building from across the River Motoyasu.

Young man ringing the Peace Bell in the Memorial Park.

At this point in our visit, it was time to find a park bench, and sit to eat our lunch. We were surrounded by dozens of school kids sitting on plastic mats on the ground, eating their lunches. 

The Memorial Museum with exhibits in the bridge portion of the building.

After exiting the Memorial Museum, large groups of school children were assembled waiting to load onto buses. 

We went into the museum after lunch. It was very crowded, most especially by school kids. The exhibits are laid out in a serpentine line, and you had to follow a path through them. Most of the time I could see over the heads of children to read the English paragraphs below the Japanese.

Alan really liked this tree directly behind him.

I would liken the museum to a Holocaust museum. It had before and after photos of the city. It had a children’s clothing exhibit of what they were wearing when they died. There were photographs of burned up people. There were individual exhibits of personal stories and photos of where people were when they died and what they were doing. I didn't take any photos inside the museum because they were too graphic.

The pretty fall foliage in the park.

On August 6, 1945, the atom bomb was dropped over Hiroshima, and the damage was in zones. Where we were on ground zero, in a 1.6 km (one-mile) radius, people and buildings were incinerated instantly and gone. Next zone, two kilometers out, people were severely burned and blinded, few survived very long, and their bodies couldn't be found. Maybe a watch or an iron kettle remained behind. Things were carbonized and fused together. Next zone out, flying glass shards killed and maimed many. People were still burned, some might've survived for a little while. The estimated death toll was 140,000 people died by December. 

The Children’s Memorial, inspired by Sadako, and the Thousand Paper Cranes. The plexiglass boxes surrounding the base hold paper crane garlands made by Japanese children.

There were too many sad stories and photos to relate it all. The exhibit that finally brought me to tears was the story of Sadako Sasaki. She was two years old when the bomb dropped near their home. The family survived, and she grew up to be a happy child. Then at age 10, she got leukemia from the radiation exposure. Her story stated that her family was so poor that they couldn’t afford any medication for her, and she bravely tried to be cheerful for them as she was in pain. This started the tears.

This is what Google said, “Recalling a Japanese legend that says a wish will be granted to anyone who folds a thousand cranes, she began folding them in her hospital while battling her illness. Sadako died before completing her goal, but her classmates finished the cranes for her, and her story inspired a national movement to build the Children’s Peace Monument in her honor in Hiroshima’s Peace park.” There is a bell under the monument that people take turns ringing. 

Another view of the Cenotaph. A cenotaph is a representation of an empty grave, for those people whose bodies are missing. 

This is where the Peace Memorial Ceremony is held every year on August 6th, led by the mayor of Hiroshima. President Obama was the only U.S. president to ever visit the service and lay a wreath at the park. The exhibit in the museum stated that he was not there to apologize for the war or the bombing, but to unite countries in working toward peace. 

We found it surreal and a strange coincidence that we had planned to visit Los Alamos in September after visiting some other sites and national parks. In Los Alamos, we stopped and visited the Manhattan Project National Historic Park and learned all about the making of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is so much more to that story than what is told here at the museum, but each country has their own perspective on it.

One last view of the A-Bomb Building before we leave Hiroshima. 

Hiroshima citizens, after the war, were of two minds regarding the A-Bomb Dome. Some wanted it demolished right away to remove the memory of the horrors the bomb and the deaths it caused, while others wanted it to be preserved as a reminder of the horrors of atomic bombs and nuclear weapons used on humanity. It wasn’t until 20 years later when in 1966, the Hiroshima City Council finally decided to preserve the remains. The Peace Park was begun in the late 1940s and the museum was completed in 1955. So, the decision to finally keep the dome was decided, and it is a big part of the impact of Hiroshima, having that one ruin to show the destruction. 

All of the Train Stations have their Christmas Trees up already, preparing for the holidays.

We returned to the train station by tram, we had a two-hour wait for our train, as we weren’t sure how long to plan for our visit when we bought our tickets. There are plenty of stores and restaurants in the station and a large waiting room. I have to tattle-tale on myself. Alan and I bought some dinner to eat on the train ride home and then waited in the train station waiting room. Alan took a long walk, leaving me and our stuff in the waiting room. I started to get anxious that we might miss our train, so when I saw him coming back, I grabbed his backpack and mine and met him outside the waiting room doors. When we got settled on the train, Alan said, "I can't wait to eat my sandwich," to which, I said, "didn't you have our dinner in your backpack?" I had left the sack with our dinner on the bench in my haste to get to the train! Oh, it was a long ride back to Kyoto! We got back to our hotel around 8 p.m., and said good night to Deidre. She had a good rest day.