World Trip – Stage 23, Hiroshima

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20th to 22nd May

The Shinkansen Bullet Train is speeding at 320kph through the Japanese countryside and through the numerous long, long tunnels. We are leaving Hiroshima after an incredible few days.

Hiroshima – arrival

We took the Shinkansen from Hakata Station in Fukuoka to Hiroshima in just over an hour.  As expected the QR ticket on the iPhone didn’t work at the entrance gates, so we were glad of taking the precaution of getting a printed copy, but there was a manned entrance we could have used. 

Arriving at Hiroshima Station, we navigated our way through the busy crowds and confusing signs, to a street. Much peering at Google maps took us over a couple of bridges, arriving at our hotel for the night. We were welcomed by hundreds of smart looking police; white helmets, face masks and gloves offset the blue shirts nicely.

Crowd control barriers held back a few curious pedestrians and some frustrated cyclists, who were not allowed to cross the roads. Nervous officers ran back and forwards, occasionally blowing their whistles and waving their light sabres. Oh, look – a cavalcade of motorbike outriders, three or four black limos and some white transit vans, probably filled with security staff.

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It was the G7 summit, that had hijacked the city. Not only were the streets closed, especially between the Peace Park and the central area where we were, but also everywhere we had originally planned to visit. It was amusing to see Rishi Sunak on the front page of the Guardian, in the Japanese Sunken Garden, where we were just a few hours earlier barred from entering…!

Giving up on any sightseeing, we found a charming little restaurant to cool down in, with a smoothie each, and a reservation for dinner later. We had already decided to leave and spend the following day exploring Miyajima Island, returning early on Monday, after the end of the summit. We could not possibly leave without visiting the Peace Park.

Dinner, on the roadside terrace of our lovely little restaurant, with the charming lady owner, was memorable, with the cordoned-off road and our guardian policeman on one side, and a screen on the other side alternately playing classic French songs and some popular Japanese karaoke songs from indoors.

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Oh – there went another motor cavalcade…this time without the national flag flying up-front. That must be Zelensky, we thought, a late arrival. Today’s visitors including the premiers of India, South Korea and Australia had flown their flags.

Miyajima

Miyajima Island is a popular resort, half an hour’s train ride from Hiroshima Station. Figuring out how the trains work, buying tickets, finding platforms always present a fun challenge when English signage is sparse, and does not necessarily make any sense. Still, we jumped on the train, and luckily it went in the right direction!

Half an hour later, we found the way to the little ferry, for a ten minute voyage to the island. It was lovely. Lynne met a charming lady from Melbourne who gave us some hints on Miyajima. And – what are the odds – it turns out she would be boarding the Queen Elizabeth in Yokohama on the 24th, as we are! See you later, Julie!

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The sun was generous, the holidaying people were relaxed, the local deer(!) were mixing with the strolling tourists. We took pictures for a nice Japanese couple, with the famous O-torii Gate in the background, and they took pictures of us. ‘Turns out, they had just returned from the UK, visiting their daughter at Bristol University.

We stopped for coffee and the famous local heart-shaped soft momiji biscuits, which we saw being made in a fascinating small manufacturing piece of equipment.

We passed the fabled shrines, heading uphill, to the Miyajima Ropeway – a two-stage bubble and gondola lift, taking us high up into the densely forested mountains. After a visit to the loos (they are everywhere in Japan – and all fantastically clean!), we embarked on a trail, taking us to the very highest point of the island, the ‘Mount Misen Observatory’. Views all round, and a welcome breeze after a hot and sweaty ascent to 535 meters.

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This time we took the bubble lift down. We were lucky to find our hotel’s shuttle bus at the ferry terminal, and did not need to call for it: useful as we don’t have a SIM card.

Feast!

Oh, did we mention it was Peter’s birthday today…? Thirty-five again! Second time….. Cards, that Lynne had carried all the way from London, were opened and appreciated in the morning as well as messages from various friends and family. In response to Kirsten’s birthday wishes, we were sending her pictures of our first hour in Miyajima, until we realised it was 3am on Saturday night in London. 

The second treat was our destination – the Miyajima Seaside Hotel – a very, very nice, very, very Japanese hotel. Leaving our shoes before entering the lobby, we were allotted a lovely room, as Japanese as it can get, with beautiful views over the beach and mainland.

Settling into our room, Lynne did some secret fiddling about, involving the box of matches she insisted we needed. Turning around, she presented a bijou cake and two tiny candles, one in the shape of ‘7’, the other ‘0’, brought all the way from the Paris Baguette in Busan.

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Cooling down after our walk, we decided to get hot again, and descended, in our Japanese Yukata robes, to the hotel Onsen, or  (very) hot baths. The big treat followed – a Japanese banquet on the low table in the middle of our room. We had no idea what most of it was, even with a printed menu, but it was great fun and certainly a birthday dinner to remember!

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After dinner, our table was put away and futon bedding made up. Quite a day! It was tranquil in the room, broken only by the sound of Christian’s call to wish his dad well. We loved the hike in the hills and the enterprising Japanese birthday.

We breakfasted early, an ‘interesting’ experience involving several items, we didn’t recognise. Thankfully, also some mini croissants and an egg cooked on a flame in front of us.

Hiroshima – Remembrance

We powered on, and got the first shuttle bus to catch an early ferry and train back to Hiroshima Station. We hopped onto a tram, known here as a “Streetcar”, getting off at the Atomic Bomb Dome station.

We spent a sombre couple of hours in private reflection as we lingered past the Dome, the Children’s Peace Monument, the Peace Flame, the Pond of Peace and the Cenotaph. We descended into the quietly moving National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. The Hall of Remembrance and a short film about the experience of some of the Meteorological Observers during that fateful time were particularly acute.

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After a quiet and thoughtful coffee we made our way back to the hotel we had stayed in earlier. We had left our rucksacks there for the night, as the railway station lockers were closed due to G7 security. We found a shorter route to the station, and were in plenty of time for a spot of lunch before boarding the train to our next destination – Yokohama.