The last two days in Fukuoka have been largely unstructured just so we could ease into the time change and the long list of activities we have planned for the next few weeks. As a result, our sleep has been kind of all over the place but TODAY we have places to be and stuff to do. I knew that I wanted to bring Joanna to one of the two peace museums either in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Being in Fukuoka we’re about an hour from either city. Selfishly, I made the executive decision to just go back to Hiroshima because I wanted to eat Hiroshima style okonomiyaki again.
Foreigners have the ability to purchase a 7 ($211), 14 ($336), or 21 ($430) Japan Rail pass which gives you unlimited rides on the bullet trains/shinkansen which covers the entirety of the country. I had scheduled our trip where we would activate it today and it would expire on our last day which we need to take the shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo to fly home. The JR pass is a really fantastic way to travel Japan but unfortunately they’re raising the rates by 70% in October.
Today’s trip to Hiroshima was 177 miles and took about an hour. If we paid out of pocket it would have been $100 each way so you can definitely understand the savings if you’re moving around a lot like we are in the next two weeks. The train tops out at 160mph and leaves exactly on time every day. The trip was like if we were to get on in Minneapolis and get to Wisconsin Dells in about an hour and fifteen minutes when it normally takes 3 hours.
We got on the Nozomi train heading towards Hiroshima which left exactly at 8:00am sharp. I thought it was great that we basically had the entire train to ourselves but couldn’t help shake a weird feeling as if we were on the wrong train. The digital sign said this was the train heading towards Hiroshima so I relaxed knowing we were going the right direction until the ticket guy came and said that the JR pass is not allowed on this super express line and we’ll have to get off on the next train. Whoops.
We arrived to Hiroshima at 9:30, just slightly later as we had to wait 15 min for the allowed Sakura line which had a few more stops than the wrong train we got on. We caught a bus to the Peace Memorial Park which memorializes the almost 140,000 people that died as a result of the bomb that was dropped on August 6, 1945 by the United States.
I came here with my siblings in 2015 but was surprised to find out that they renovated the entire museum in 2019 so this was all pretty much brand new to me. I was relieved with our timing to come visit the museum because the G7 summit happened last week in Hiroshima and we would not have been able to come as President Biden and other world leaders came to visit the museum about a week and a half earlier.
I think this museum is really important for anyone who comes out to Japan to visit. It really changes your view on war and the innocent victims that get caught in it. The first section describes the morning of the bomb drop and then you walk into an area that describes the moments after the explosion.
There were really gruesome photos taken of people laying down covered in burns and depictions of their skin hanging off their bodies, hair falling out, and vomiting blood. It was completely silent as we were walking through the exhibits except there was a baby that was crying. At first I thought it was a sound effect they added to make things feel more real but it was an actual visitor’s baby crying. It still made the atmosphere all the more heavy.
I feel like the new updates had a bigger emphasis on sharing the stories of the survivors which the last time was more factual.
One story that stuck with Joanna was from a girl named Sadako Sasaki who was 2 years old and living 1 mile away from where the bomb detonated. She developed leukemia at 10 due to the severe amount of radiation. While she was getting treatment, she learned that if someone were to fold 1,000 paper cranes, their wish would be granted. She died at the age of 12. The exhibit had some of the cranes she folded out of medicine wrappers.
The one thing that stuck out to me last time and this time was a map at the end of the museum tour that shows the number of nuclear bombs that each of the countries has stockpiled. Seeing the aftermath of what happened in Hiroshima makes me feel gross that countries continue to build these weapons. Humans suck.
I learned from the exhibit that not only Japanese people were affected but there were many foreigners living in the city doing business or as exchange students. I believe there were about 20 American POWs that were in Hiroshima that died from the bomb blast. It’s Memorial Day today so it was oddly fitting to learn that.
We went to go see the Peace Flame memorial just outside of the museum which was lit in 1964 and is another memorial to the victims but it also continues to be symbolically lit until all nuclear bombs are destroyed and no longer a threat to humanity. We wanted to take a picture in front of the A Bomb Dome which was the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall and the only surviving building closest to the hypocenter of the bomb, but it felt felt crass smiling knowing the tragedies that resulted from the bomb being dropped. Here’s our “we’re also kinda the baddies” photo.
Learning about casualties of war doesn’t really stir up an appetite but it was already past 2pm and we needed to find food. We went out to look for Hiroshima style okonomiyaki which is like a savory pancake layered with your choice of meat, green onions, cabbage, and a sweet brown sauce on top. What makes this different than Osaka style okonomiyaki which is more well known is that all the ingredients are separately layered and this kind has yakisoba noodles which I like more.
The restaurants near the peace museum were lined up with tourists so we walked 10 min farther away and found the Okonomiyaki village with 24 different stalls selling a variation of the same thing. Unfortunately they were closed when we got there so we walked into another one nearby.
The experience is similar to eating at Benihana just without the tricks. You typically sit in front of a griddle where the cook prepares the ingredients in front of you. It’s a nice dining experience watching them make your food. I ordered one with Hiroshima oysters which is one of the region’s specialties and Joanna got one with pork belly and cheese melted on top.
We definitely over estimated the amount of energy we thought we’d have today. One idea was to take the 45 minute ferry to Miyajima Island to see deer walking around and see the famous Tori gate that’s accessible at low tide. That would have been a half day thing and we just didn’t have the physical capacity to do it so we bookmarked it for the next time we come back to Japan.
My friend Chris asked if I could get him a pair of Hiroshima Carp socks. I didn’t really understand what he meant but he explained the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak came during the G7 summit last week wearing red socks from the local baseball team the Hiroshima Carp surprising the Japanese PM.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon going to a bunch of stores looking for these socks. We found everything from jerseys, to underwear, to rice paddles but unfortunately the news of the PM wearing the socks went viral and all the stores sold out and don’t expect to re-sock (heh) until later this month. I guess you could say we went on a wild carp chase, however we are now full fledged Hiroshima Carp fans without knowing anything about their baseball team.
