Day 14 Hiroshima and Miyajima
It was going to be a long day so we again had a fortifying breakfast
before getting a taxi from the Vessel Inn Hotel to the Osaka railway station. Here we met
Trudy (from Geelong), who was staying at the Granvia Hotel next to the station, and our meeting point, and joining us on the tour of Hiroshima and Miyajima. The WA boys, an
Indian lady, a lady from the Nederlands and two Canadians also joined our group.
We took two trains from the meeting point to Shin-Osaka station and a Nozomi shinkansen to Hiroshima. A tour guide and a large bus were waiting for us at Hiroshima station.
Hiroshima was a modern and spacious city. I guess they had a
blank canvas to work on after the devastating bombing at the end of WW2. We
took a short ferry ride across the water to Miyajima island, which had been declared
a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There were so many shrines and a marvellous temple
that sat virtually on the water. Another big drawcard was the large red Tori Gate
that stands in the sea and made a dramatic approach to the island.
We walked along the arching sweep of the harbour, beneath a
large stone gate and across to the multi branched temple complex. Trudy was
relying on a walker and decided to stay by the shore, rather than plough on
with the rest of us. The place was full of deer, which could get quite aggressive,
ripping open any plastic bags you are carrying, or trying to eat the very
clothes you wear. At one stage, an angry posse came for me and try as I might, I
couldn’t fend them off until another tourist stepped in and helped.
After the temple, we took the road through the village shops
to get some lunch. We tried to find Trudy but she had escaped into the shops.
Johnny and I had a sit down lunch in one of the restaurants, with Johnny ordering
a prawn tempura with noodles, and I had a rice dish with some of the oysters that
were farmed in the sea around Miyajima. Walking back to the ferry terminal Johnny
bought some of the local cakes (maple leaf shaped with a bean paste filling) and
those wretched deer chased him biting through the plastic bag that the cakes
were in.
We were all looking for Trudy, who had settled in for a rest
some distance away, with a massive bag of toys she had bought for her
grandkids. This was priceless as all morning she had complained about
travelling with her brother, as all he wanted to do was shop, shop, shop.
From the ferry terminal back on the mainland, we again boardered
the bus and made for the Peace Garden in Hiroshima and the associated museum.
We saw the remains of the building that survived the atomic blast at ground
zero. We walked through the Peace Park and the various memorials were explained
to us. The museum housed an emotional exhibition, not only of the devastating
events related to the bombing of the city, but of so may personal stories of
the ordinary people and the horrors they went through. We saw the images of Sadakko and read the story of her initial survival and consequent death. the thousand paper cranes have become a symbol of desperate hope.
The bus then took us back to the railway station where by
now it was nightfall and we bought some sushi boxes to have on the train during
our trip back to Osaka. Then it was another quick rail trip and a taxi ride back to our hotel, made even more pleasant by our
chatty Indonesian driver who was keen to practice his English on us.
