Dale's Blog: Japan okasa day 6

Friday 7 August 2015

Japan okasa day 6 - Hiroshima

Today as been an interesting day as we went to the Hiroshima memorial and the dome. Last night we asked the hotel staff how to get to Hiroshima but he was not really sure so we got up 8am and walked through the umede train station which is massive and found an information desk. She helped as much as she could but she spoke no English so it was a bit of charades. We managed to find our train (shinkansen train one of the fastest in the world) to go on a 350km journey into Hiroshima.

The train is very smooth and it takes about 1.5hrs to go about 350km. When we arrived we had to try and work out how to buy a bus ticket so we could do a tour. The ticket was an all day ticket that cost $2 per person. We went to the dome which is a building that still stands today.

Its amazing how it looks and what damage was done. It only takes about 10 minutes to walk around so we then caught the bus to the memorial. Entry was 50c per person and it takes about an hour to walk through it. It is very sad and disturbing with what items are on display. They have not tried to hide anything or make it pretty. The idea being the whole thing is more about getting rid of nuclear and radioactive weapons so it does not happen again.

The black mark is black rain which is a mixture of rain and radiation,

The thing we did not realise was yesterday was the 70 year anniversary of this occasion.

This man had left a paper crane as a remembrance to the occasion, here is the reason behind it . It is a sad story and hopefully this never happens again but i am sure it will as too many countries who are power hungry.
After doing the touristy things we got ramen for lunch. The ramen tastes different compared to back home, more salty and beefy but tasted amazing.

After another 1.5hr ride home we finally made it. We were impressed that we made it there and back. My friend was right we did not need to do a tour and it did not take 12hrs. For dinner we had sushi and the chef cut it in front of you and served it. Kim did not like the salmon roe..