Hiroshima & Miyajima

After failing to get to our hostel in time and then getting kicked out of an internet cafe for trying to kip on their couches, we resorted to sleeping rough for the night in Hiroshima. It could be argued that this wasn't the best preparation for a day in which we tried to fit two trips, but there was no other option as our rail pass was running out and we needed to get back to Tokyo.

We started the day by heading to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial to see the site where the first ever Atomic bomb hit. It was a sobering experience but it was hard to feel an appropriate depth of emotion when we were dead on our feet and being bombarded with seemingly innocuous information. As with the Kyoto Museum my issue was that they tend to over emphasise random statistical information, so instead of telling me about Kyoto's long and varied history they spent ages talking about how to glaze stone and how hot the furnace has to be. Likewise here, where we were told a great deal about what height the bomb was dropped from etc and given less first hand accounts from survivors and other artefacts that could have given the true sense of human suffering involved. That said it was better than Kyoto and bits of the Memorial Park was quite interesting, especially the remains of what is now called the A Bomb Dome (the maintained remains of a building at the epicentre of the blast)

Next stop was Miyajima to see the Itsukushima Shrine's Torii Gate. Miyajima is a small island just off Hiroshima accessed by ferry. I just read that sentence back and it feels like all the love is slipping out of my writing. It is dull and factual now, much like the audio commentary on our boat which, instead of telling us why and when the Shrine was built decided to tell us the dimensions of the pillars at great length. It turned out that seeing the island overrun my tame deer was as much of a spectacle as the shrine.

The last photo here is one of my personal favourites, depicting Natalie on the run from an aggy deer who bit and started to chase her after she got a bit too friendly.