One atomic bomb can ruin your whole day.
Back in 1945 on 6 August, just after breakfast, the Enola Gay dropped Little Boy on the city of Hiroshima and 60,000 people didn’t make it home for dinner. Estimates of casualties are always hard to make depending on whether you count who died immediately or in the next week or in the next few years, but best estimates are around 140,000 over the next few months out of a total population of 250,000.
What trees survived the atomic blast? Eucalyptus trees, of course, and we saw some of them in the castle grounds later.
Leaving early in the day, we walked down to the Hiroshima Peace Park after some coffee for breakfast, and managed to beat most of the crush. The city has done a great job of building a park with a central theme of promoting peace throughout the world. There are monuments to various groups of people who perished, and a mound holding the cremated ashes of around 70,000 victims, but the central focus of the park is the building that withstood the bomb, even though it was only 100 m from the epicentre. Debate raged many years ago as to whether it should be demolished or kept as a reminder, but it survived and has certainly become the focus of the park, and the most visited point in the city.
After visiting the various monuments and bells, we did the tour of the museum documenting the day and the subsequent effects, which is a little hard to take at some points.
Although there are many devastating and long lasting effects of the bomb, there are one or two positive things that emerged. The Hiroshima Carp baseball team were formed after the war to buoy the spirits of the locals, and okonomiyaki became a staple to feed those that didn’t perish with whatever food they could find. It’s since spread around the world.
After visiting Hiroshima Castle, wandering through the grounds and looking at the Chrysanthemum Show taking place, we ended at an okonomiyaki restaurant for lunch. There’s actually a building of 4 floors near us that contains nothing but okonomiyaki vendors, all having subtle variations on their dishes. Your selection is cooked in front of you on special hotplates in the tables.
Atomic Bomb Dome
Hiroshima Peace Park
Children’s Peace Monument
Burial Ground of 70,000 unidentified victims
Hiroshima Castle
My Okonomiyaki – cooked in front of me