Hiroshima 15 June

We arrived in Hiroshima today and alighted at the train station after a 12 hour bus journey from last evening at 830pm.

There were tram cars still in use and it was a 1st time for both of us on tram rides. Seen them but never had the chance to take one. Neway, it was comfy and costed a flat 150yen (S$1.90) to anywhere. We took it to Dobashi station and walked to our new lodging at J-Hoppers, a nice backpackers inn.

Ben and i decided to rent bikes to continue our Team George-I-Go tradition from China while Marco and Jackie were still around..

Midway thru, it began raining but we were undeterred and cycled wif our brollies to visit further located shrines, castles, army cemetary and an observatory on a hill.

1st stop was the Peace Memorial Park, a sprawling area that holds the annual remembrance ceremony for those who perished from the Atomic bomb. It was August 6th 1945.
Bottom right hand corner, that's the Eternal flame that keeps burning until the day the last nuclear weapon is destroyed. Behind it is the Peace memorial Museum.


The memorial for all children who were died from the Atomic bomb. Atop is the statue of a young girl, holding up a paper crane which symbolises their dreams for peace.

Anyone can fold and bring their own paper cranes and add them to the shelters around the statue.. And many have done so.


On the eastern side of Hiroshima, we came to some old streets that was called a promenade of history. What we saw there were several shrines and some old residential buildings. Probably not that historical too considering almost everything was flattened just 63 years ago.
We moved southwards to Hiyajima Park afterwards, where we visited a old Army Cemetary with a fantastic view of the city, a Radiation Effects research foundation (juz outside thou) and an observatory which ironically didn't have as good a view as the cemetary had. Looking down towards the now rebuilt city, images of the flattened, charred cityscape which we saw at the museum came to my mind. It was sad recollecting what i saw.

At J-Hoppers... So far, a very nice place.. That's our lounge area. And our rooms are supposed to be shared dorms. However, they ran out of dorms and very nicely allowed us to stay in the private traditional ryokan style rooms for the same price! And even extended the same price for another night's stay in this room! Very good first day here.... Staff are all friendly and speak english so its a breeze to communicate. Rooms are clean, the crowd mix are mainly friendly young and backpacking travellers so the ambience is correct. The owner is a globe-trotting motorcyclist too i read!

And lastly, that is the Hiroshima Castle.. It was already dark when we got there at 745-8pm. It was really small compared to Osaka Castle. As quoted from our travel book "Rough Guides", if you've seen other castles, don't bother comin' to this one. I second that.

Stuart in the lounge... while Benny probably is sprouting Japanese in his dreams in our tatami ryokan room.