Over the mid-winter break in late February I spent a few days in Hiroshima and Miyajima. This post is about my visit to the Peace Memorial Park and Hiroshima Castle.
A city of contrasts, Hiroshima carries the scars of a tragic war and flourishes as a modern city of peace.
The Peace Memorial Park sits prominently on the river in what used to be an urban district called Nakajima. Until 1945, Nakajima was "a thriving commercial center where goods coming up the rivers on boats were unloaded, then sold or sent elsewhere by land. In the Meiji era (1868-1912), it was the political, administrative, and commercial heart of Hiroshima, home to City Hall, the Prefectural Office and Hiroshima's central distribution facilities."* The atomic bomb was dropped directly above Nakajima and as a result the area was completely obliterated.
Peace Memorial Park, which covers approximately 122,100 square meters, was completed in 1954 as a monument and reminder to all of the devastation of atomic warfare.
There are over fifty cenotaphs and memorials scattered throughout the park.
I enjoyed wandering through the Peace Memorial Museum and viewing the haunting relics and displays and photos within.
The museum building is quite spectacular. According to the guide the "main building was designed in the pilotis-style so that the space between the land surface and the elevated floor can symbolize the human power to rise from the ashes."
When viewing the museum from the southern end of the park, near the Fountain of Prayer, you can see the A-Bomb Dome in the distance. The Fountain of Prayer was "built in dedication to the souls of A-bombing victims who died crying "water, please, water" and in the wish to console their souls."
The Children's Peace Monument is another special place in the park. This bronze statue of a girl holding a golden crane was built to remember and mourn all the children who died from the atomic bombing. Surrounding the statue in glass cabinets are thousands of paper cranes made by school children throughout Japan and internationally.
The A-Bomb Dome is a skeletal reminder of the destruction of the atomic bomb and is all that remains of the Hiroshima Prefectural Products Exhibition Hall, an art deco palace, designed by Czech architect Jan Letzel. Apparently much of the building survived because it was located directly beneath the atomic explosion. The A-bomb Dome was registered on the UNESCO World Heritage List in December 1996.
One of the most moving monuments in the park is the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. It is a stunning building, completed in August 2002, designed to provide a way "to remember and mourn the atomic bomb victims, to pray for eternal peace, to deepen world public understanding of the horrors of atomic bombs and to convey the A-bomb experience to later generations."
The centerpiece is the Hall of Remembrance, a large circular room where one can "peacefully pay tribute to the A-bomb victims, and contemplate about peace."
The wall of this room is spectacularly lined with "a panorama that recreates a view of the A-bombed city as seen from the former site of Shima Hospital, the hypocenter. The wall uses approximately 140,000 tiles, the number of A-bomb victims estimated to have died by the end of 1945. The basin at the center indicates "8:15 a.m.", the time of the A-bombing. The basin is intended to offer water to the souls of the A-bomb victims who died craving water that day."
I have lots more photos of the Peace Memorial Park here.
After a contemplative day reflecting on the aftermath of the atomic bomb, I meandered over to Hiroshima Castle and it's surrounding parkland for a change of atmosphere.
The castle was home to the Emperor, who moved to Hiroshima during the Sino Japanese War of 1894-1895. Unfortunately the castle and its surroundings were destroyed by the bombing of August 1945. It has since been partially reconstructed. The grounds are littered with the remnant foundations of what was once a sprawling collection of royal residences and assorted government and military buildings.
Within the grounds are two trees that survived the atomic bomb. Interestingly one is a eucalypt tree which is now thriving...
While in Hiroshima I had to try a local speciality....Hiroshima-yaki or Hiroshima-okonomi. Okonomi-yaki is a Japanese style pancake. There are two styles - the original style from Osaka is a mixture of ingredients cooked pancake style on a grill plate. In Hiroshima the ingredients are not mixed but rather layered.
Here's a video showing how Hiroshima style okonomi-yaki is made.
And for those who are curious I stayed in this hotel, which is a typical Japanese business hotel, on the river right near the Peace Memorial Park. Nothing to rave about, but clean and in a really convenient location! This was the view from my room:
For more tourist information about Hiroshima in English, I found the Hiroshima Navigator to be a very helpful and well designed website.
* Direct quotes are taken from the guides found on the English version of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Website.
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