An early start and we were on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. I have to say that travelling on these trains is a total pleasure - fast, clean and on-time ... always!
Our first visit was the
Memorial Cathedral for World Peace - optimism in concrete. A pleasant modern edifice .
Walking a bit further, via the 7 Eleven store along the way to buy some lunch, brought us to the beautiful
Shukkeien garden. This garden is a favourite for wedding photos and we were fortunate to see two brides in the most magnificent traditional kimonos. The garden was begun in 1620, but was fried in 1945. Restoration was complete in 1964. Sitting in the sunshine, while eating our lunch in this lovely garden, which is a stones throw from Little Boy's ground zero, was a sobering experience. In the time it took for us to swallow a morsel the town was destroyed - one of those moments in history which, in a flash, destroy the past and, looking around the city now, create an unimaginable future. We wondered if the bride, in her beautiful kimono, ever considered what had happened to her kin in that moment or, full of young optimism, she was too busy to consider such a negative time. We, in our complacent way, enjoyed our fresh vegetables and noodles ...
We walked a little further to the re-built
Hiroshima Castle, but didn't explore its grounds. An interesting monument which somehow had no interest for us.
A few blocks later, via the vast underground part of a shopping centre, took us to the
Atomic Bomb Dome. This remnant of the building has a strange quality as it stands like a lepper among the fresh modern buildings. The trees around the remains do give a sense of re-birth; we supposed from some of their placement that they hadn't been planted by design and, judging from their size, they were probably 65 years old - the idea may be wrong, but it put a little positivity on an otherwise bleak memorial. For those who have the dubious pleasure of being old enough to have lived in bombed towns and cities the stark skeleton of the A-Bomb Dome brings memories which are far from pleasant.
We caught the Shinkansen back to Kyoto and had a furious six minutes to change trains at Shin Osaka. All was as it should be in Kyoto; coffee and cake, supermarket full of food and clean, freshly laundered sheets to rest weary limbs in - makes us think ...
