Hiroshima

We started walking along one of the arms of the Ota river which splits up delta like in the main part of the city. Quickly we reached a the Shukkeien Garden a huge and gorgeous Japanese garden with tons many elaborately cut trees which look like big Bonsais, Sakuras which started to blossom, plum trees which were already losing the last blossoms, a small bamboo forest and many more cool plants. The garden was created by some rich duke who wanted to use it as his residence. In the middle was a huge pond with more Koi carps than I’ve seen in my lige of all imagibable colors and some as huge as a leg of a sumo wrestler! But we also saw some cute turtles and a crab^^ Funny were also saw some weird big straw structures which we first believed were just some nice statues. But as it turned they were some Yashiwara maki - palm trees wrapped in straw to protect them from the cold.

After spending more than in our in this beautiful garden we started to walk towards the Hiroshima castle. With the temperatures rising is was getting more and more pleasent and we bought some delicious but also very expensive ice cream with very interesting tastes! René had roasted black sesame which had very dark grey colour almost like ash, Claudi sakura with a nice rose colour and I macha tast with a strong green colour. The castle complex is surrounded by a moat and a wall and also holds a temple and a big park. We went to the temple first and ate our ice cream in front of the big Torii sitting in the sun.
Then we went to which sits beautifully in one corner of the rectangular mote which is very beattiful building out of dark wood and many stories which looked as if they took right out if a movie :D

Even though very interesting the next stop was also very depressing... We went to the atomic bomb dome which was the only building in the vicinity of the the hypocentre that survided the blast of the atomic bomb because it was a out of steel and the blast was coming very straight from the top since the explosion was 600 m above ground.
The sheer view of this building in sheds with all the rubble is ver impessive and made very sad remembering very vividly what undescribable act happened there. Close the dome is the big memorial park situaeted on an island between two river arms in which are many peace memorials including a huge bell that you ring and which is incredibly loud and the cenograoph which is a small concrete gate that funnels the view back to the dome. The peace museum of which the biggest part is under renovation at the moment is also on the island. We went inside anyway and found some very interesting but also shocking information. At first there a room with big video wall with short movies of contempory witnesses which I personally found too one sided and distorted from reality. But then came a big room with detailed information of the planning and the process of the bombing with many original documents and really perverted information like the decision of the cities bases on public casualties etc with the sole reason to end the war quickly enough to avoid Russia from getting involved and stronger...

After this the mood was quite bad and it took a while to rehabilitate. But the next place helped a lot to forget that cruel piece of history a little bit.
We took a train and a ferry to Miyajima island a bigger island in Hiroshima bay. Already on the ferry we could see one of the well known attractions of Japan: a huge red Torii standing in the ocean on six legs. When we arrived on the island Claudi & René had to go to the toilet. So I went out of the building and was very surprised to see a small deer just standing around totally unimpressed of all the humans! It was even approaching me in hope to get some food and I could touch it! Coooool! :D
But when they came back from the toilet, Claudi & René braked my enthusiams a little by telling me that they already had seen these deers in a huge number in Nara that they’re somewhat holy and are not allowed to kill. And also on this Island there were many of these animals just walking (and shitting) in the city not caring for the humans who don’t feed them at all.
Of course we went immediately to the huge Torii but had to cross a very annoying touristic passage with tons of stores and kitch first... But the view of the Torii was absolutely worth it! And we were even lucky that is was ebb tide so that took off our shoes and could walk through the shallow water directly underneath this impressive wooden gate! Right behind the Torii looking towards the island was the big temple which it belongs to. The whole complex is build on the beach and stands on columns so that it’s above the water st high tide. But it was the first temple for which we had to pay an entrance fee... And beeing still barefoot they even asked us to put on our shoes. So we walked through the temple and has some more great views on the Torii and the temple itself. Looking straight through the Torii we could see some other big complex on the main island but couldn‘t directly find out what it was....

As basically all islands Miyajima also is very hilly and we wanted to go up the mountain range to enjoy the view. But beeing quite late, the cable car was not running anymore and we were also afraid of it getting dark too soon... But started to walk up anyway and I even saw two deers climbing up the canyon of the small stream accompaniing the path up. The path was in an excellent condition mostly consisting of stairs. Soon we met some German guys going down and René asked them how long it would take and about the condition of the path. With sumset approaching and Claudi beeing a little slow we decided to split and René and me sped ahead to reach the top before sunset. So we quickly climbed up the 536 m elevation through the rain forest and could enjoy many outstanding views down on the torii and the main island. It was very stunning that even on the steep mountain road they managed to build some small temples and shrines… A little exhausted we managed to reach the top before sunset to enjoy an even better view down all sides of the islands and the beautiful sunset while drinking a well deserved beer! But since it was getting dark soon we had to hurry a little bit to get down. Not going very far we met Claudi but sadly we didn’t have time to go up again and just sped down while it was getting darker and darker. When we reached the bottom almost all light was gone and we just took the ferry back.

Back in the city we wanted to try a specialty of Hiroshima – Okonomiyaki which is already an adventure seeing them prepare it because you have a hot steel plate in front of you on which the cooks also prepare the dish. It consists of some kind of pancake dough filled with fried pasta and many other nice thing depending on the restaurant and a very delicious special sauce. In the end it looks a little like a round cake with filling :D
Already during the meal our exhaustion kicked in quite heavily and we were very happy when we came back to our capsule hotel to take a looong relaxing sleep :DRead more