OK, so this is what's new.
My cereal bar rations have been replenished - yay! Also, having a hotel is A Good Thing (tm), even if check in at 5pm and carry my stuff with me the rest of the day. But I'm getting ahead of myself already.
I got to Hiroshima in the morning, and it's packed with tourists - at least the tourist-y places.
I started with a tramway trip to the Atomic Bomb Dome, very interesting to see how this was still in place. There were also a number of monuments erected to peace and to remember the people who died.
The Memorial Home has impressive settings - the Hall of Remembrance is sober but... the only word that comes to mind right now is majestic. The testimonies of survivors were very moving - it's hard to convey what happened here, but these stories are very humane and can get to you.
More dramatic was the nearby Museum, with good scaled models, and plenty of stories and objects from the time of the bombing. Some things that stood out:
- a wall with marks from the black rain that fell after the explosion
- calls for peace and disarm movements
- a number of stopped watches, all set at 8.15
- accounts of diseases developed by survivors (these were a tad hard to stomach)
- 'phoenix trees' that survived and tales of reconstruction and relief activities
- impressive facts about the generated heat, shock wave, and radiation
- a human shadow on stone
- clothes everywhere
- a lunch box with a charred meal within it still
- glass fragments everywhere - in people, in walls, in clothes
After the grim tour, I headed off to Hiroshima castle, with a tower that was rebuilt after the bombing and has some historical items. A surviving eucalyptus in the area was very interesting to see. I also saw a bunch of foundation stones remaining from buildings that stood before the blasts.
From there, to my hotel, drinking some coffee along the way, then a walk around the shopping district, okonomiyaki, and back to the hotel. Now blogging this, and wondering what I'll have to do to get my email back up.
Oh, and an interesting piece of news: it's over $600 to fly from Oita (near Beppu) to Tokyo, so I might still do the cross-country-in-train trip. Keep checking for more news!
Tomorrow, up at 5.25, and off to Okinawa I go!
