A-Bomb

I got to Hiroshima really easily -- a Shinkansen Kodama train to Osaka and then a change to the Shinkansen Hikari RailStar to Hiroshima. The train to Hiroshima was totally rammed, so I had had a bit of uncomfortable journey with my big bag taking up most of my leg space.

At Hiroshima I caught the streetcar (tram) to my hotel. I dumped my stuff and headed straight out to the A-Bomb sights -- the Peace Park and the A-Bomb Dome.

It was all interesting stuff, but the impact was somewhat diluted by the hordes of school kids -- it's obviously high on the list of school trip destinations, for obvious reasons.

I think the Children's Peace Monument was the one which gave me a bit of a lump in the throat. It was inspired by a girl who got leukaemia as a result of the bomb. She decided to fold 1,000 paper cranes -- the crane being a symbol of happiness and longevity in Japan. The girl was sure that if she managed to complete her task she would recover. Unfortunately she died before she could finish. However, her classmates folded the remaining cranes and this inspired a paper crane folding craze. The practice continues today and I saw two groups of young school kids form up in front of the monument, sing a song or say a prayer and then leave a memorial of a collection of paper cranes. Quite touching.