· The Japanese sure can buildHiroshima, Japan · 15th Feb 2008 · Posted by Chris
Well, it seems the task of writing about the sad stuff is going to fall squarely on my shoulders again. That's cool though - for some reason the thought of having another mini vent about something tragic, Hiroshima this time, isn't as bad as it should be. Where to start ...
It's kinda hard to imagine what people were thinking at 8:14 a.m. on August 6th, 1945. I reckon there would've been thoughts along the lines of 'What nice weather this morning!' (coz it was) or 'Man have I got a busy day ahead!'. Whatever the people were thinking it all became completely and utterly irrelevant at 8:15 a.m. Unless you're too young to remember, don't care about history or have been living under a rock, everyone knows that the American bomber aircraft named 'Enola Gay' unleashed the first atomic device ever to be launched in anger on the Japanese people at 8:15 a.m. on August 6th, 1945. So, with that bit of setup out of the way, what is Hiroshima like?
I can sum up the city of Hiroshima pretty quickly with 1 word - BEAUTIFUL. Apart from the monuments at various locations that I'll talk about in a minute, you would never know that the entire city had been knocked flat in less than 1 second a while ago. Admittedly, the local people seem slightly more sombre than other Japanese people we've met in other cities but there's a good chance that's all in our imagination. The city is, in typical Japanese style, immaculately clean, the above-ground tram transport fast and efficient and the overall design is made up of wide streets that seem to have been made that way to keep the city feeling open and definitely not claustrophobic.
We had booked into a place called 'Hotel Active!' - it's considered budget by our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook but I don't think any business person would feel let down by the facilities. The staff were great, the room was very well appointed for an apparently budget place and it was right in the middle of town. It's an awesome deal so if you're in this neck of the woods we highly recommend it.
Unfortunately the inevitable realisation of the sad history of Hiroshima had to begin at some point so we took the tram down to the stop where you can go to see the 'Genbaku Dome' or 'A-Bomb Dome'. This is the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall - the atomic bomb was detonated 600m above and 160m to the south-east of it which meant it took an unbelievable hammering when the explosion took place. The Genbaku Dome has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and will be preserved for eternity in the same state it was in directly after the bomb.
Walking towards the remains of the structure is really quite eery. It's quite tall and the remains of the bomb's skeletal structure are silhouetted against the sky. It's amazing that the building survived as much as it did considering the bomb packed a punch roughly equivalent to 16 tons of TNT and killed 140,000 people during and after the actual blast. The 370-410m diameter fireball (estimates vary) reached several million degrees Celsius at the center, the results of which were complete a destructive firestorm that levelled most of Hiroshima. The Hiroshima peace museum even has a piece of a building on display on which can be seen the shadow of a person that was caught in the heatwave - the shadow is all that remains of them.
The Hiroshima peace museum is where it really starts to hit home though. The first thing you see when you walk in the door is a 3-minute video that sums the whole thing up, just to make sure you know why you're there. At the end of it it's difficult not to hate the people that dropped the bomb but at the same time you have to remember that we as a race didn't know any better - we'd never dropped an atomic bomb on anyone before. Yeah they'd been tested but I guess people didn't think quite as much back then. Who knows?
The museum is massive and every corner is packed with time lines, photos and accounts of peoples' experiences on that day over 60 years ago. It's a particularly moving experience to read about a parent wandering through the wreckage and finding a wooden shoe they'd made for their child. But, you might ask, how can they possibly tell that the shoe belonged to their child and not someone else's? I guess it's not that hard to work out when it's made from material the parent took from their own kimono. As complete outsiders we can only imagine the effect on the poor parent when all that's left of their son or daughter is a dark stain on the shoe, left when the victim's foot blocked a tiny amount of the intense heat created by the fireball. :(
Throughout the museum there are exhibits that have been donated by family members of bomb victims. A pocket watch, stopped in its tracks by the massive electromagnetic blast thrown out by the bomb. A shirt, still stained with the blood of someone's daughter. A small child's trousers, burned and melted by the 4,000 degree Celsius ground temperatures. Sigh ...
Despite the unavoidable sadness that comes from walking around a city that was destroyed to within an inch of never coming back, it's a very pretty city. The river that flows through Hiroshima is stunning on a calm day - the reflections of the surrounding buildings and of the trees along the river's edge are definitely worthy of putting on postcards.
One evening we tracked down a restaurant called Bakudanya that serves a style of food called 'tsukemen'. It's a style of eating that involves a plate of all sorts of vegetables and meat plus a big bowl of curry sauce that you dip everything else into. It's REALLY nice and we chose the standard curry temperature - the menu's curry ratings go from standard to a picture of a guy looking like he's having a heart attack! Apparently you're only allowed to try that level of curry heat if you've successfully survived the previous 2 levels ... wow.
Considering it was Valentine's Day we had to find a nice place for a celebratory drink. We knew of a bar called Opium that had been recommended to us by, you guessed it, the Lonely Planet (there's a bit of theme emerging here I think). We eventually managed to find it and headed in to check it out. The place was actually really nice. The lighting was cool and mellow, the music was deep and housey (one of my favourites) and the drinks were very well-priced considering Japan's reputation for being expensive. Annie's choice was Mozart Chocolate Liquer and mine was the tried and true Bailey's Irish Cream. Both were served on the rocks and did a very good job of relaxing us into the mood of the Opium bar's chilled out atmosphere. All in all it was a very pleasant way to top off a nice evening. :)
So that's about it. I know I've got a thing for not really holding back on the gory details sometimes so I apologise if anyone finds my writing offensive - blogs are for sharing opinions after all, right?
Next we're heading back to Tokyo on the Shinkansen again - love it!
It's kinda hard to imagine what people were thinking at 8:14 a.m. on August 6th, 1945. I reckon there would've been thoughts along the lines of 'What nice weather this morning!' (coz it was) or 'Man have I got a busy day ahead!'. Whatever the people were thinking it all became completely and utterly irrelevant at 8:15 a.m. Unless you're too young to remember, don't care about history or have been living under a rock, everyone knows that the American bomber aircraft named 'Enola Gay' unleashed the first atomic device ever to be launched in anger on the Japanese people at 8:15 a.m. on August 6th, 1945. So, with that bit of setup out of the way, what is Hiroshima like?
I can sum up the city of Hiroshima pretty quickly with 1 word - BEAUTIFUL. Apart from the monuments at various locations that I'll talk about in a minute, you would never know that the entire city had been knocked flat in less than 1 second a while ago. Admittedly, the local people seem slightly more sombre than other Japanese people we've met in other cities but there's a good chance that's all in our imagination. The city is, in typical Japanese style, immaculately clean, the above-ground tram transport fast and efficient and the overall design is made up of wide streets that seem to have been made that way to keep the city feeling open and definitely not claustrophobic.
We had booked into a place called 'Hotel Active!' - it's considered budget by our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook but I don't think any business person would feel let down by the facilities. The staff were great, the room was very well appointed for an apparently budget place and it was right in the middle of town. It's an awesome deal so if you're in this neck of the woods we highly recommend it.
Unfortunately the inevitable realisation of the sad history of Hiroshima had to begin at some point so we took the tram down to the stop where you can go to see the 'Genbaku Dome' or 'A-Bomb Dome'. This is the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall - the atomic bomb was detonated 600m above and 160m to the south-east of it which meant it took an unbelievable hammering when the explosion took place. The Genbaku Dome has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and will be preserved for eternity in the same state it was in directly after the bomb.
Walking towards the remains of the structure is really quite eery. It's quite tall and the remains of the bomb's skeletal structure are silhouetted against the sky. It's amazing that the building survived as much as it did considering the bomb packed a punch roughly equivalent to 16 tons of TNT and killed 140,000 people during and after the actual blast. The 370-410m diameter fireball (estimates vary) reached several million degrees Celsius at the center, the results of which were complete a destructive firestorm that levelled most of Hiroshima. The Hiroshima peace museum even has a piece of a building on display on which can be seen the shadow of a person that was caught in the heatwave - the shadow is all that remains of them.
The Hiroshima peace museum is where it really starts to hit home though. The first thing you see when you walk in the door is a 3-minute video that sums the whole thing up, just to make sure you know why you're there. At the end of it it's difficult not to hate the people that dropped the bomb but at the same time you have to remember that we as a race didn't know any better - we'd never dropped an atomic bomb on anyone before. Yeah they'd been tested but I guess people didn't think quite as much back then. Who knows?
The museum is massive and every corner is packed with time lines, photos and accounts of peoples' experiences on that day over 60 years ago. It's a particularly moving experience to read about a parent wandering through the wreckage and finding a wooden shoe they'd made for their child. But, you might ask, how can they possibly tell that the shoe belonged to their child and not someone else's? I guess it's not that hard to work out when it's made from material the parent took from their own kimono. As complete outsiders we can only imagine the effect on the poor parent when all that's left of their son or daughter is a dark stain on the shoe, left when the victim's foot blocked a tiny amount of the intense heat created by the fireball. :(
Throughout the museum there are exhibits that have been donated by family members of bomb victims. A pocket watch, stopped in its tracks by the massive electromagnetic blast thrown out by the bomb. A shirt, still stained with the blood of someone's daughter. A small child's trousers, burned and melted by the 4,000 degree Celsius ground temperatures. Sigh ...
Despite the unavoidable sadness that comes from walking around a city that was destroyed to within an inch of never coming back, it's a very pretty city. The river that flows through Hiroshima is stunning on a calm day - the reflections of the surrounding buildings and of the trees along the river's edge are definitely worthy of putting on postcards.
One evening we tracked down a restaurant called Bakudanya that serves a style of food called 'tsukemen'. It's a style of eating that involves a plate of all sorts of vegetables and meat plus a big bowl of curry sauce that you dip everything else into. It's REALLY nice and we chose the standard curry temperature - the menu's curry ratings go from standard to a picture of a guy looking like he's having a heart attack! Apparently you're only allowed to try that level of curry heat if you've successfully survived the previous 2 levels ... wow.
Considering it was Valentine's Day we had to find a nice place for a celebratory drink. We knew of a bar called Opium that had been recommended to us by, you guessed it, the Lonely Planet (there's a bit of theme emerging here I think). We eventually managed to find it and headed in to check it out. The place was actually really nice. The lighting was cool and mellow, the music was deep and housey (one of my favourites) and the drinks were very well-priced considering Japan's reputation for being expensive. Annie's choice was Mozart Chocolate Liquer and mine was the tried and true Bailey's Irish Cream. Both were served on the rocks and did a very good job of relaxing us into the mood of the Opium bar's chilled out atmosphere. All in all it was a very pleasant way to top off a nice evening. :)
So that's about it. I know I've got a thing for not really holding back on the gory details sometimes so I apologise if anyone finds my writing offensive - blogs are for sharing opinions after all, right?
Next we're heading back to Tokyo on the Shinkansen again - love it!
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