Day fifteen - a thousand paper cranes and okonomiyaki to take the edge off

Hiroshima - everyone knows the name of this city and everyone has some knowledge of the bomb that was dropped there, and i am not going to moralise about if it should have been and why it was dropped. I will talk about how amazingly pretty this city is, that is the word for it, pretty. There is something about Hiroshima, there is a serenity and calmness embedded within the architecture and general feel of the place, and then on top of that constant reminders of the

horrors that effected and continue to effect Hiroshima. We started at the A Bomb dome, which before August 1945 was a municipal building and was one of the building closest to the hypocentre, it is still semi standing, albeit has been reinforced. We walked thorough the park, rang the peace bell. We stopped to take in the Children’s peace memorial which was erected by the class mates of Sadako who died due to radiation poisoning leukaemia at the age of 11, 9 years after the bomb dropped. The paper cranes symbolise Sadako folding 1000 of them before she died as legend stated if you folded 1000 you would be granted one wish. After her passing a campaign was put in motion to commemorate her and all children effected by the bomb and to pray for world peace, at this place tens of thousands of cranes are offered from people all over the world every year.

We looked over the main peace monument with it’s still waters and messages of peace, again this place gives off anaura of tranquillity and at the same time you can visualise the destruction that tore this city apart the day the bomb was dropped.

If you ever make it to Hiroshima you have to go to the peace museum, if you are not an advocate for peace and nuclear disarmament before this, you will be by the time you leave. The museum takes you through the science and personal stories of survivors and those not so fortunate, it features many photos of the physical affects of those exposed to the bomb. I won’t go into the many many stories, but one stood out. One of the displays was a tiny tricycle and a helmet. These belonged to a three year old boy who was riding his tricycle in his backyard when the bomb hit, he was killed instantly. His father buried him in that backyard and so that he wouldn’t be alone he buried him with this trike and so that he would be protected buried him with the helmet on his head. Years later his father transferred him to the family crypt and donated the trike and helmet to the museum., it was at this point I started crying.

Hiroshima is also apparently the home of Okonomiyaki, which is variously described as a Japanese pancake, or Japanese pizza. Hiroshima is home to Okonomi-mura, a 5 story ‘theme park’ with heaps of okonomiyaki restaurants and this was where we ate that night. After wandering around one floor, we started on the second we looked over towards a restaurant in the corner with about four japanese men and a couple of western tourists, as we looked over one of the Japanese men yelled out “ You eat HERE!” so the choice on what restaurant to eat at was made for us. The propriter and cook was a sweet Japanese woman in her 30’s and her english was very good, and was able to translate for us, which was good because the group of japanese men that were there were business men who all wpored together and had been drinking sice abut 5pm (we got there at about 7pm), but they were great guys, very funny and very drunk and took a shine to BF and kept ordering drinks for him. The Okonomiyaki was amazing, filled with lots of seafood and cabbage and eggs and was cooked in layers. I didn’t end up eating all of mine partly because it was so big, and partly because one of the drunk Japanese business men ate half of it for me. We talked and hung out with these guys

for ages, one of the guys ended up passing out on the bench. Their boss who was there ended up paying for our drinks which was quite nice, we eventually drunkenly sauntered back to our backpackers.