FormoSam: Hiroshima and Miyajima

Hiroshima and Miyajima

広島 + 宮島

For one of our days in Kyoto, we decided to take a day trip out to Hiroshima and the neighbouring island, Hiroshima to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Itsukushima Shrine respectively.

Waiting for the Shinkansen at Kyoto station...

After arriving in Hiroshima, the Peace Park was easily accessible through the regular streetcars that ran through the city.

The Peace Park is enormous, covering over 120,000 square meters and was the chosen location for the world's first ever nuclear bomb attack. One of the centrepieces of the park is the A Bomb Dome which is one of the few surviving buildings from the time of the bomb and was almost directly underneath the explosion of the bomb.

The A-Bomb Dome

The park was filled with different tributes to the victims of the bombs. There were scattered leaflets written by relatives of survivors offering access to their stories as well hundreds of bouquets of flowers and bottles of water. There was also a prevalence of crane imagery, with thousands of paper cranes being displayed. This relates back to the story of a girl known as Sadako Sasaki who developed Leukaemia after the bombing. Sadako was told by her friend that anyone who folded 1,000 paper cranes would be granted a wish, so she proceeded to fold as many paper cranes as she could, far exceeding 1,000. Unfortunately, she died at the age of 12 and the cranes are now used both as a symbol of peace and to commemorate the children of Hiroshima.

Hundreds, if not thousands of brightly coloured paper cranes.

The Children's Peace Monument.

Visitors to the park were also given the opportunity to fold our own paper cranes, with free instructions and origami paper being provided. It was a little difficult at first, but there were lots of friendly people in the area who helped both me and my family members to finish our cranes!

The A-Bomb Dome from a distance.

We went to the Peace Park just a couple of days after the 70th anniversary of the bombing, so the park was filled with hundreds of bouquets of flowers left in honour of the victims.

After exploring the outside of the park, we went into the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The museum focused on the day of the bombing and the immediate and long term affects the bombing had on the citizens of Hiroshima, with many stories of individuals who had been affected. The museum did not shy away from any of the horrors of the bomb, with photos of burn victims, burnt tatters of clothing and even pieces of black fingernails which some of the survivors were permanently left with as a result of the radiation. The museum was a very sobering experience, but extremely interesting and served an important reminder of the true horrors of war and I'm glad that we got to see it!

After leaving the museum, we went to catch a ferry to the nearby island of Miyajima which is famous for its vermillion shrine, friendly deer and 'floating' Torii gate.

The ferry ride offered stunning views of the ocean and the mountains.

Soon, the Torii gate of the Itsukushima Shrine was in site!

Upon arriving at the island, the deer immediately made their presence apparent. There were huge numbers of them mingling with their tourists, clearly enjoying all the attention they received.

They were very comfortable with people-arguably over confident!

And they would attempt to eat pretty much anything loose you had hanging from you, be it plastic bags, backpacks or loose clothes.

While walking along the small streets of the island we passed this huge wooden rice scoop-allegedly the largest in the world! The scoop apparently took three years to make, is 7.7 metres long and weighs 2.5 tons.

The island was stunning to walk around, especially as the sun began to set!

A view of the floating torii gate of Itsukushima Shrine.

There were lots of kayakers going right up to it and passing through.

More deer!

As well as the torii gates, there was also a shrine which was built entirely on stilts for when the tide went in.

Like the Fushimi Inari Shrine, the Itsukushima Shrine is a Shintoist shrine and is very distinct for its bright colour!

View of the gate from inside the shrine.

Sake casks within the shrine. Sake seems to be a common feature of Japanese shrines, with many holding casks like this as well as little bottles left as offerings.