Hiroshima

The BBC weather forecast lied. My 3 days in Hiroshima
were meant to be warm and sunny, but today was cold and
rainy. I think this is my comeuppance for leaving my 100 yen
umbrella behind.

Once again I’m staying at K’s House. I hadn’t even realised
I’d booked into K’s for Tokyo, Hiroshima and Kyoto, I just
booked the top rated hostels and had done with it. I’m super
glad though, they are the best!

After I arrived here yesterday evening I sat around in the living
room making friends, and getting loads of Kyoto tips from two
Belgian girls and a French guy.

Today I hired a bicycle and headed for the Peace Memorial
Park and Museum. I fell completely in love with the bike,
just because it made me look like a total dork, especially
riding along one handed holding an umbrella (I bought a
new one).

I made a beeline for the museum, basically because I’d put
a little bit too much trust in the BBC and had left the hostel
minus a jumper, so I needed a warm.

The museum was really intense, and was full of photographs
and artefacts from the aftermath of the bombing. There was
also lots of information about the history of nuclear weapons
and about the present situation, which is really disturbing.

There were photos of the burns victims, most of whom died
within a few days of the bombing, and loads of things that had
been recovered from the destruction, from roof tiles and glass
bottles fused together in the heat, to blood splattered school
uniforms and actual bits of burnt flesh and finger nails.

There was also a watch which had stopped at 8.15am, the
time the bomb hit. The weirdest thing was a ‘shadow’ on a
step; the heat from the explosion had scorched the step and
wall behind where someone had been sitting, but left the
outline of the person, who had no doubt been instantly killed.

After the museum I wandered around the rest of the park.
There is a flame, which will continue to burn until the last
nuclear weapon has been destroyed.

The most moving part of the park is the Hiroshima
Children’s Peace Monument, for the children who died in
the bombing. It is centred around a little girl called Sadako
Sasaki, who was 2 when Hiroshima was hit. She developed
Leukaemia when she was 12 as a result of the radiation, and
thought that if she could fold 1000 paper cranes, she would
be cured. She died before she could complete them, so her
classmates folded the rest, and they were buried with her.
Since then, thousands of paper cranes have been folded for
Sadako and left at the memorial as a symbol of peace.

I also visited the A-Bomb dome, which has been left in it’s
original state as a reminder of the destruction, and, I guess,
the recreation, of the city.

Then I went to Hiroshima Castle, but it was a bit boring.
The actual castle had been destroyed by the bomb, so it’s
just a rebuild-come-museum, although you could go out
onto the roof and see out over Hiroshima, which was
quite cool.

I had a wander round some covered shopping streets, and
then cycled back to the hostel for a cup of tea! This hostel
is amazing, the atmosphere here in the evening is
unbeatable. Hostelling is the best; when you stay in a hotel
everyone keeps to themselves, hangs out in their room and
eventually locks themselves up alone at night. But in a hostel
there’s no privacy in your dorm, so you spend all your spare
time in the common areas with everyone else.

You sit on sofas chatting all night, making each other cups
of tea and sharing stories and tips. Everyone is so different;
although I seem to be one of the few who came to Japan as
part of a bigger trip, most other people are here on a 2 week
holiday.

Actually, I think that’s the main reason why I love the
atmosphere so much. There are none of the pretensions
and inflated egos that you tend to find amongst backpackers;
no holier than thou attitude that seems to seep out of their
tanned skin and dreadlocked hair. It’s made me realise that
SE Asia is for morons. I mean, I’m not a moron, but that’s
because I don’t have enough self confidence to be egotistical.

Here’s something I overheard just before I left for Japan; a
girl stood behind me in line at the 7/11 in Bangkok, and she’s
talking to her friends about someone who’d asked if she was
on holiday. “NO I’m not on holiday”, she goes, “I’m a
BACKPACKER”, and she actually sounded genuinely
impressed with this glorified status she‘d granted herself. I
mean, seriously, shut the hell up. You’re on holiday, enjoy
yourself. Actually, I’m doing that thing again where I get
annoyed over trivial things because it reminds me of someone
else. Never mind.