Hiroshima (and the surrounding area) was quite an experience.  It was great! However, I think what I had made of Hiroshima was what made it great – otherwise it might have been pretty average.  Read on!

Friday night I went out drinkin with a bunch of guys at the beer park right by my dorms.  It was good fun, had a bit to drink… a bit more… and more… ultimately I ended up going to sleep at 2am, to be woken with a hangover by Mitch at 6:15am – sleeping through my alarm.  I had to be at Hirakata Station by 7:33, the bus left the bus stop at 7:00am, and I had nothing ready.  My clothes were even still in the dryer downstairs!  I really didn’t think that through – guhhhh….

Anywayz, being the super human I am, I managed to slow down time and got myself ready AND made it to the bus stop with a couple of minutes to spare.  I needed food. And drink.  I was pretty hungry and thirsty, but didn’t have much time.. so! Convenience store! I grabbed a drink then spotted something potentially edible.  STEAM BUNS!

Yeah, been meaning to try them! So i grabbed a meat filled one, for a whopping ¥110 ($1.50 AUD).  It was great! I was really surprised, it was a bit dodgy i might add.  Probably equivalent to a dodgy sausage roll from 7-11 in Australia.  Cool beans… Onwards!

I headed up to platform 4 at the train station, where I found a mass group of foreigners that could only be my fellow classmates.  We caught the express train to Yodoyabashi Station, then caught the Subway to Shin-Osaka.  At Shin Osaka we prepared for our 8:45 Shinkansen departure.  We hopped on, it was awesome, we pretty much just took over an entire carriage or two – it was quite funny. 2 hours later we arrived at Hiroshima Station.

The first thing I saw when I walked out of the station was TRAMS! Yay! There were heaps of trams, and they looked pretty nifty too.

So it was about 11am, I had to be in the basement of the Hiroshima Peace Museum at 12:45.  So i decided to head that way, check out the Genbaku dome, then head over to the Museum.  So i jumped on a tram and made my way there.

The Genbaku dome was cool, its basically just a building that remained standing after the Atomic Bomb. REALLY cool.

From there i headed off to the Museum, where I paid a whole ¥500 to get in.  One of the first key displays there was a miniture model of Hiroshima in 1945.  It was cool.  But right next to it was another miniature model of Hiroshima – after the bomb hit.  It was completely levelled.  I could probably count on my hands how many buildings were left over.

A couple of photo’s i took on the way!

Apart from that, the museum was much like most museums: artifacts, plaques, displays… it was interesting, but it was very museum-ish.

Around 12:45 I headed down to the basement and into an auditorium.  There I was going to hear a “speech” by an atomic bomb survivor.  So in my mind I was picturing quite a disfigured old lady – however she surprised me at how well she looked.  She looked fine – i mean, she was old, but she appeared no different to the next old japanese lady i run into (or ride my bike into, for those who watched my bike ride home from Makino clip lol).  However, one of the first things she said when she started speaking (or so i was told) was that she had had a stroke, and as a result her speaking was actually quite bad.  This, combined with crappy mic’ing by the museum and my bad hearing resulted in me not understanding ANYTHING of her presentation.   So I sat there for about 45 minutes, annoyed that i had no idea what was going on. grr….

So after the presentation, my buddy Annie filled me in on what she said.  She said something about being in a field with her friend, collecting wood or something – what she was doing wasn’t so important, but what WAS important was that she was NOT at home. In fact, the field she was in was 1 or 1.5kms away from Ground Zero, which was closer than her house was. The strange thing is that if she was any closer to ground zero she would have died.  BUT her home was barely touched.

Then she saw a plane fly overhead, and she immediately became worried because Hiroshima was NEVER touched/bombed/attacked before then (more on that in 2 paragraphs time).  So she dropped to the ground, not sure what her friend did.  But next thing she knew it felt like she was hit on the back of the head and she fell unconcious.  Then she regained conciousness.  Then she went on to talk about the moment she realised that her entire body had been burnt and her clothes had been burnt away – except for her collar or something.

Her friend, i think, died there and then.  But she went to cool off at a nearby river because she had been burnt.  I’ll leave out some particular gruesome details, but she ended up cooling off in the river when she heard another friend call her.  Together they started walking back home.  Her friend was complaining about being very thirsty, then eventually her friend collapsed.  Her friend kept asking for help, but there was nothing she could do.  She had to leave her friend there.  She never saw her friend again.

Eventually she made it home, got medical attention and obviously lived.  Now for a fun fact.  Hiroshima was never touched by America before the Atomic Bomb.  Why?  The moment Hiroshima and Nagasaki were decided by the American military as the two bomb targets, no one could attack the targets as America wanted Hiroshima and Nagasaki in tact so that they could use it as a test subject to see the effects of the Atomic Bomb.  Had they bombed Hiroshima before hand, it would be harder to tell what damage the Atomic Bomb dished out and what damage was caused by other attacks.

Image stolen off another site.  Thanks other site.

After the Peace museum, I went and checked into my hotel room, then went out and grabbed some lunch with Annie.  We decided to grab some Ramen, which by the way I have developed an obsessive addiction for.  Then I called up my buddy Frank, and asked him what he was up to.  Frank (American dude) and his buddy Simon (Swedish dude) were going into the Hiroshima Park for some drinks – sounds good!  Annie and I bought some beverages and waltz over to the park – which was quite far, but all good.

This park was like a maze!  Annie and I eventually found Frank and Simon, after getting lost and pooping our pants because the place was so eerie and spooky.  We sat by this big statue of some guy, with a view overlooking Hiroshima.  It was really nice.  We were drinking and chatting away, then eventually Simon suggested we find a bar or some place to go.

We headed out of the park and headed back towards our lodgement – checking out places along the way.  Eventually we found this place with a sign for Karaoke.  We thought it would be a good idea.

So we walked down a set of stairs, opened the front door and IMMEDIATELY took a step back.  We saw a large room, with a bunch of old people sitting there – they had to be at least 3 times my age – singing karaoke!  The person in charge (also old) nervously walked up to the door and we just kinda looked at each other wondering if we should even be here.  We quickly convened, then decided we would join the old folks!

The people we sung Karaoke with

Everyone was just staring at us, and old-Japanese-people music was playing.  So strange.  But this karaoke set is different to the normal karaoke in Japan.  Usually you get a tiny private room to sing with your friends, however this was just 1 room and all the oldies were just sitting there watching the singer.  So nerves set in, i got some water, and immediately the peer pressure was on – “Sing a song Jace!”.  Well Simon was singing too, but he was totally gung-ho!  He was into the karaoke song book looking for a song immediately.  After a bit of pressure I decided to sing my rendition of Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra – a song i thought appropriate for the old folks.  Annie jumped up and sang with me, it was pretty fun – just super awkward.

After our Karaoke sesh, I went back to my hotel and caught some zzz’s. Day #1 is OVER!

A brief interval…. *elevator music ensues*….  And we’re back! Day #2!

Day #2 was a great day.  On the 2nd day in Hiroshima, I went to Miyajima.

I took a train to Miyajimaguchi (Japanese Lesson: “Guchi” can be translated somewhat to “gate”.  So Miyajimaguchi = Gate to Miyajima).  And apparently I had arrived smack bang in the middle of a festival! Random.

[insert picture of festival that Jace doesn't actually have... moving on]

After I had finished gawking at the bizarre goings on of the festival, i ran over here:

Jumped on this:

And ended up here:

(…It’s Miyajima)

Where I saw this thing:

…. *cough*

So Miyajima is kinda famous for a few things.  Such as these:

Deer

Monkeys

And the big red Tori (plus Annie for dramatic purposes)

Ok i’ll stop finishing my sentences with photographs now.

The deer were everywhere the moment I stepped onto the island.  And they’re really tame, a bit pushy for food, but they’re ok.  You can walk right up to em and pet them it was really cool.  The monkeys were savage! Well.. not to people, but to each other!  I saw a bunch of them screaming and fighting down out of the way of people.  However the ones up near the people seemed pretty stable, running around your feet.  It was cool.

To be honest, not too much happened at Miyajima.  It was an absolutely beautiful island, had a really nice feel to it.  But there isn’t much to write.  I saw a bunch of stuff, went on a sky-lift to the top of a mountain, saw monkeys and other stuff, nice views etc. etc.  Very touristy.  Not much interaction, just eye candy.  So… well sorry guys, looks like i’m gonna have to finish this paragraph with more photos (which will technically be in the next paragraph):

After Miyajima, I went back to Hiroshima Station and nabbed the next shinkansen home.

So…

When I was in Hiroshima I saw a building that survived an Atomic bomb, I also saw a Human being that survived the Atomic bomb, I sat by a statue drinking a grapefruit vodka thing whilst overlooking Hiroshima city with great people, I also sung karaoke with a room of people whose ages combined would easily have been in the 1000′s, I accidentally witnessed a festival, ferried to an island, saw my first deer and saw random monkeys.  Good times.

Ciao for Now!