A Day of Remembrance in Hiroshima

Our night in the Buddhist temple was interesting – that is certain. In Japan, they sleep on the floor and use pillows filled with buckwheat shells - that feel like small pebbles. While lying on the floor wasn't too bad, we found the pillows especially uncomfortable. Neither of us slept that well, which was disappointing.

Perhaps it was for the best, as we had to awake at 5:15am to attend the morning prayer service with the monks. We were dressed in our robes, ready to go right on time. However, our tour guide accidentally misread the information and the prayer service didn't start until 6:30am. So, we tried to go back to bed for an hour. However, we were unsuccessful in our efforts to get more sleep.

We attended the ceremony at 6:30am. During the service we sat in the back of the room (on our knees – which is incredibly difficult to do for long periods of time), while the monks chanted away. There were incense, gongs, and lots of speaking in Japanese during the ceremony. We had no idea what they were saying or doing – we just watched. Towards the end of the ceremony, the monks encouraged us to participate by dabbing some ash from the incense and rubbing it on our foreheads. We kindly obliged.

Following the ceremony, we had breakfast that was, again, prepared by the monks. The breakfast was definitely non-traditional for us. It included seaweed wrap, rice, miso soup, tofu chunks, and green tea. We did our best with the breakfast.

Once breakfast was completed, we packed up our belongings, said goodbye to the monks and left Koyason. We took the bus, the cable car, and a train in order to get to Namba station, where we purchased tickets to Hiroshima. From here, we grabbed some food. We were planning to get Bento boxes for lunch, but couldn't find any that looked that tasty. Erin had picked out a salad, with what she thought was chicken – but, James kindly informed her that it was not chicken, but squid (he could see some tentacles). Erin then gave up on choosing a Japanese lunch, and opted for a safer bet – McDonald's. James, however, grabbed a package of noodles and some pork dumplings. Unfortunately, James discovered that the noodles were supposed to be heated before being eaten as there was a gelatinous substance on the bottom of the package that was supposed to liquify with heat to become the sauce. Needless to say, he ate them anyway.

Our cable car back down the mountain.

One final, beautiful view from Koyosan.

James's inappropriately-eaten noodle lunch.  (note the gelatin bottom)

We very eagerly flashed our Japanese Rail Passes to the train agent and hopped on the "Shinkansen" or "bullet train" to Hiroshima. The bullet trains travel extremely fast – nearly 300 km per hour. The train was very new, clean, and comfortable. We arrived in Hiroshima around 1:30pm and quickly checked into our hotel, which was right in the center of the city. From there, we went directly to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The museum was really interesting. We both learned more about the use of the atomic bomb in World War II. We learned of the heartbreak that occurred as the first bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945. Nearly 160,000 people lost their lives after the attack. It really was eye-opening, and we felt extremely sorrowful as we viewed the exhibits.

Erin and James pose in downtown Hiroshima.

One of the many peace parks in downtown Hiroshima.

The direct view of a peace sculpture, with the museum directly behind.

A museum exhibit, demonstrating various views of Hiroshima's mushroom cloud.

A tragic remnant of the Hiroshima bombing.

We also walked by the A-Bomb Dome and saw the damaged building that was one of the few to survive the attack. The building was the closest to the hypocenter of the nuclear bomb that was not completely demolished. We also walked through the Peace Memorial Park, which is dedicated to those people who suffered from the attack. We stopped by the Children's Peace Monument, which is a memorial for all of the children who died or suffered in some way from the bombing. The statue on the top is of a girl with a folded paper crane. This statue is a memorial to a young girl named Sadako Sasaki, who became ill due to radiation from the bomb and willed to make 1,000 paper cranes with the hope that if she achieved the goal she would be healed.

Tabitha solemnly stands in front of the A-Bomb dome memorial.

Another view of the A-Bomb Dome memorial, subject of some controversy in Hiroshima.

By the time it got dark, we had some free time to wander through Hiroshima. We found a large covered mall with another 100 Yen store in it. With our tour group, we also stopped into one of the arcades and watched a few people play some of the games. We had a group dinner, and we really enjoyed our food tonight. We were able to order some of our favorite Japanes foods: sushi, edamame, and yakitori chicken.

The siren song of the 100 yen store...

Our guide and fellow tour member playing the drum game in the arcade.

A truly Japanese dinner - edamame (soy beans), sushi rolls, and grilled chicken.

After dinner, we walked around a bit more before going back to our hotel and heading to bed. It was a long, and draining day for us.