As I've been to lots of different destinations rather than just staying in one country this time around I'm thinking that the most commonly asked question might be: "What was the most incredible / best thing you saw?"
Good job I have plenty of time to come up with a solution because I think it's going to be pretty impossible to answer.
For me, experiences and sights will fall into different categories; for example, my favourite moment might be different from the best sight I saw. And the best sight I saw might not necessarily be the most memorable thing I witnessed.
Picking just a couple of things out off the laundry list of things I have seen is going to be a difficult task, but I guess if I have a good think back over everything that I've done there will be some moments which stand out from others. My journey isn't finished yet, so I'm definitely not willing to commit to an answer about my favourite country as yet, let alone my favourite sight, but there are definitely a few contenders - many of which you could probably guess from the amount I have gushed over them on this blog.
I've seen my fair share of fascinating sights on this journey, and looking back I've also spent quite a bit of time looking at things which you would consider hold lots of historical significance. As I've written pretty much every time I've seen a historical building or artefact, I can't claim to be any kind of history buff, but I do like learning new things and at pretty much every sight I've been to, there has been plenty of information available relating to whatever I've been seeing.
Even within those visits there have been a wide variety of places including monuments, former palaces and sites relating to historical conflict. As I've written about when I've visited the latter type of location, it's hard for these types of things not to have a massive impact on me, and I think that no matter how fantastic all of the other stuff has been, those might be places that leave the longest and most lingering memories.
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It's been quite a while since I spent just two days in a specific city, and the only ones that come to mind off the top of my head are Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei and Pontianak in Indonesia, although I imagine there's somewhere a little more recent that I'm forgetting about.
On both those two occasions, that wasn't anything against the city I was staying in, but I felt like I could accomplish pretty much everything I needed to in just one whole day. In Brunei I was pretty much just going just so that I could say that I have been there, and in Indonesia my goal was to spend time in a city that lies exactly on the Equator, and aside from that, I'm not too sure there are many redeeming qualities about Pontianak itself.
My reasons for staying in Hiroshima for such a short space of time are slightly different, and it's pretty much so that I could be greedy and add a couple of extra destinations to my stay here.
By the time it came around to arranging everything for Japan, I was locked in for a date that I had to leave and arrive in Hong Kong, and it just so happened that when I was coming up with my itinerary I was left with four days at the end.
I could have taken one of the days and tacked it on to somewhere else, perhaps giving myself some extra time in Tokyo, but I was quite happy with the balance of spending five nights there, and then I didn't want to 'favour' any of Kyoto, Kobe or Osaka, as it seemed like they had equal amounts of things to do in each.
That left me with the option of picking somewhere else to go for four days, or what I eventually decided which was making two more quick stops before leaving Japan altogether, and then that would work out to me spending three weeks here which was ideal.
Originally, as I discussed yesterday, I was going to spend two of the days in Nagasaki, but when I looked at the map and saw that there was an easy way to get from Osaka to Hiroshima using the train it occurred to me that, that would be something that I should do whilst in the vacinity, as who knows if I will ever get the chance to return to somewhere that is either famous or infamous for its involvement in World War Two.
The names of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki are pretty synonamous with the end of the Second World War, and although the bombing of the latter was closer to the Japanese surrender which eventually ended the conflict, I think that Hiroshima had a more significant affect on the world, and is probably more widely referred to when discussing the use of the atomic bomb.
On August 6th 1945 at 8:15am, the course of history around the world was changed as the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb dubbed "The Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima with an estimated 70,000 people killed in the explosion and immediate aftermath. Double that number is the estimated final death toll from the fallout occuring after the nuclear explosion with the city basically decimated and essentially unable to recover from such a strong action by the United States.
Once the second bombing took place this time in Nagasaki just three days later, the Japanese made the decision to surrender and both cities were eventually left to pick up the pieces (literally and metaphorically) of these devastating events.
I know we live in a modern world these days, but there are still several places where it is essentially unsafe for visitors to travel. Before even thinking about coming here I wanted to make sure that there was no over-hanging tension about western visitors coming to a city that was so heavily involved in the war, but what I discovered was actually that in typical Japanese fashion, the city is welcoming of foreigners, and it has used the horrendous moment in it's history as a rallying cry to the people, and these days I think that it probably does quite well from tourism as people flock to a city that is so steeped in history.
I was expecting to turn up finding a combination of somewhere between a city like Osaka where there are still plenty of lights (it is Japan after all....) but also thinking that it would be like Kyoto with lots of scenery. Before the bombing Hiroshima was never a massive city, but I guess as pretty much all of it got levelled they had to start again mostly from scratch in terms of their buildings.
Yesterday I saw once again that this region of Japan does a fantastic job of using nature to its advantage, and although the first thing you think of when you consider this country is neon lights or technology there are huge areas of green space, including the one I walked around in yesterday.
Pretty much the first thing you notice when departing from the train is that there are lots of hills and greenery everywhere, and built at the centre of the city where the river is split in two is something called 'Peace Park' which is the home of essentially everything related to the atomic bomb.
Naturally that was what drew me to Hiroshima, but having looked at several travel guides I realised that there was much more than that to see here, and as my hotel is pretty close to Peace Park I figured that I would be able to go off and spend some time doing other things and finish off there.
Before doing anything today I spent a frustrating hour or so trying to find somewhere that was open in order to exchange some currency as I'd had to pay for my hotel using cash yesterday as when I booked it I totally forgot that it was only a reservation so it was a good job I had some extra money on me in the first place.
I wouldn't say that Japan has been expensive, but in comparison to the other countries I've been to then I've probably spent a lot more here. Also when you consider I've been here for three weeks and travelled between seven different cities when I calculate how much I've spent, I don't think I'll have actually done that badly considering.
I walked past a bank with the currency exchange in yesterday, but apparently banks don't open here in Japan on a Saturday, and even though I asked someone at the information centre I literally couldn't find anywhere that was open (they suggested the post office as they have exchange places in them, but the four that I went to didn't have anyone in the bank side of it, only the mail side) so in the end I just had to withdraw some cash which wasn't a problem, but it means I'll have to exchange about five different currencies when I get to Hong Kong as I have Euros, Dollars, Lao Kip, Brunei Dollars and Singapore Dollars as well as Yen to swap when I get there. The people in the airport will think I'm running some kind of money laundering scheme!
Once I'd sorted that little situation out I was heading in the direction of the station in order to climb up towards a huge monument which was first thing thing that actually caught my eye when I arrived in Hiroshima yesterday.
On the side of the train carriage that I was travelling I saw a large silver bell at the top of a hill which I thought would probably be unreachable in a short space of time, but having looked into it I figured out a way I could get up there knowing that it would provide me with some spectacular views out over the city.
The most difficult part about it was figuring how to get to the opposite side of the train station in order to get there, but once I'd figured that out I followed a couple of people who were clearly heading up to the top and after about a twenty minute climb I eventually arrived at the summit:
On my way up I zig-zagged through the streets of what looked to be a small and quiet village which was filled with lots of temples, and following the path through a graveyard I was eventually faced with a superb view out over the city.
There were a couple of people at the top with me, and usually when you get up so high you can't really hear any sounds apart from that of traffic, but as it happened today in the distance I could see the totally full stadium of the Hiroshima Carp, the city's baseball team and all the noise that you could hear was coming from their vociferous fanbase. It was quite a surreal thing:
The view from up at the top of the hill was exceptional, and although the trees blocked you from getting anything other than about a 120 degree view as far as the eye could see I was quite impressed.
I took a slightly different path down the hill, one that I'd seen some people coming up, and this one took you through the trees, and was probably the way you were supposed to go. Along the way there were lots of small shrines.....
.....and eventually I got to a long string of gates which followed the path all the way down to a temple that had walked past mistakenly thinking that you couldn't climb up by going towards it:
I was headed back towards the city now, and looking on the map I'd seen that just to the North of Peace Park on a similar strip of land was Hiroshima Castle. From the pictures I'd seen it didn't quite look as grand as the one in Osaka, but apparently it is used for images in films and TV whenever they need a shot of a historical looking castle building.
Just like in Osaka I was planning to study the outside rather than going in, but from a distance it definitely looked quite impressive.
The grounds were fairly sizable, and you had to walk through a gate just to get there in the first place.....
....before you then walked through the grounds towards the castle:
There was some information written in English essentially describing how the castle was partly destroyed by the atomic bomb and moved to a new location where it currently sits:
The building itself looked in good condition, and on my way out there were a couple of other pieces of information about things which were affected by the Hiroshima bombing:
From the castle I was actually able to walk back in a fairly straight line until I found myself at the beginning of Peace Park.
As I mentioned it's kind of on it's own little island as the river forks off either side of it. In the centre is the park itself, but perhaps the longest lasting legacy from the bombing itself sits slightly to one side and was the first thing that I came across.
The A-Bomb Dome is the crumbling remains of a building which was 160m from the hypercentre of the blast but remained standing.
Inadvertantly it became the most recognisable symbol of the bombing, but beforehand it was known as the Genbaku Dome of Hiroshima Prefectual Commercial Exhibition Hall which was designed by a Czech architect in 1915.
The explosion took place almost directly above the building so the walls remained almost intact though the dome shattered and the people inside were killed by the heat of the blast. It was initally left alone because it was more difficult to demolish that other buildings in the area, but today is is known as the The Hiroshima Peace Memorial:
Standing in front of it was a harrowing experience and equaled any feelings that I'd had whilst walking around S21 or the Killing Fields.
It was pretty much totally quiet as people stood and photographed the building and from different angles you could see a real mesaure of the destruction:
I have to admit that it was extremely strange standing in front of something which exists because of such a monumental moment in history. I sat for a while just contemplating the impact of the explosion on not only the city, but the people living here who went about their daily lives despite the country being involved in a war.
I crossed a bridge to get to the centre of Peace Park and around the grounds there are a number of different monuments and statues which is exist for differing reasons:
The last thing I went to took a look at before heading back to my hotel was the exact spot where the bomb made impact with the earth. It is called the hypocentre and is marked with a simple plaque stating the time and date that the bombing occurred and that this was the spot where the Enola Gay flew around 600ft above and dropped the first nuclear device used in warfare on the city below:
It was strange because not many people were standing near there and had I not seen it marked on the map then I probably wouldn't have paid it any attention either as there were lots of signs all over the park which looked the same. I'd have thought that considering the dome is referenced as being near the centre, there would be signs stating exactly where the bombing took place.
I took a bit of a diverted route home through the Hondori shopping arcade which is like a couple of the ones I'd seen in Osaka and Kobe. I think the Carps game had finished not that long ago as there were lots of people in red roaming around the many different shops and restaurants which were on the street.
Eventually I found my way back to Peace Boulevard and into my hotel where I've spent the rest of the evening organising my clothes which are now thankfully washed and dried courtesy of the free laundry service. I'm going to spend some time looking into what I can to tomorrow when I move on, and also the usualy routine of how I'm going to get to my hotel from the train station - hard to believe that I only have two more days left on Japanese soil before moving on.
War
Edwin Starr (1970)
This is where I first heard the song.... Here and Here
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