Luckily the majority of the traveling took us through rural Japan, so I got to see, from a distance, just how the other half of Japan really lived. I have to say, Japan is a really beautiful country.
Luckily also, the coach drivers seem to drive the buses like normal vehicles. This is the complete opposite to Korean coach drivers who leave a bus stop, put the accelerator flat to the floor, and leave it there until they reach the next bus stop. Usually, a trip in a Korean coach is like Moses parting the red sea - most vehicles in front just seem to sense there is a coach coming and get out of the way.
I arrived at the Hiroshima bus terminal late in the morning. Unfortunately, downtown Hiroshima was around 2 hours walk from the bus terminal. I asked a few locals how to get to downtown but this just added confusion to the matter - every solution they offered seemed to not be in my favour.
I eventually reached downtown Hiroshima via taxi. A word of warning though - the 15 minute taxi ride cost almost as much as the 4 hour coach ride. Yes, taxis in Japan are VERY expensive.
My first impression of Hiroshima is that it is very very very hot and very very very humid. I think I lost around 14 litres of fluid whilst standing in the shade for 5 minutes. Oh well, at least it keeps you relatively healthy. Maybe I could start a business here... "100 YEN sauna. Line up! Line up! Just step outside!"
As usual, my first task was to walk around downtown, to familiarise myself with the area and to get my bearings. Whilst doing this, I came across some homeless people living under a bridge - a little like trolls but definitely not as mean. To my surprise, the homeless people appeared to all have blue tarpaulin tents to live in. (More on this in my Osaka posting).
The afternoon involved a very sombre visit to Peace Park. In my opinion, this is the heart of Hiroshima. It contains remnants of a building that survived the A Bomb blast as well as many monuments and a large and extensive museum.
Whilst I was here I stumbled across a Japanese Buddhist ceremony. It involved the lighting of candles from an eternal flame followed by a formal ceremony. I have absolutely no idea of the significance of the ceremony as it was around 2 weeks before the anniversary of the dropping of the bomb, and around 1 week after the anniversary of the death of Sadako Sasaki - the girl who made the paper cranes famous. There's a fairly good summary of the park on Wikipedia.
The visit to Peace Memorial Park was a very moving and eery experience for me. Many people tend to forget the thousands of innocent victims who died painful torturous deaths or had many years of suffering through cancer or other radiation-related illnesses. The Park serves as a constant reminder of the horror of nuclear weapons and the wastefullness of war.
Later in the night, I stumbled (yes, I'm not joking) across the Hiroshima Red Light District. I had written down directions to a Capsule Hotel via a posting on an internet site. The directions led me straight into the heart of a rather seedy area (well, seedy by Japanese standards) which seemed to contain a large number of women in very short skirts (which was nice to observe!), a lot of massage parlours and a lot of pubs and clubs with the word "Sexy" in their name. Luckily, a random Japanese guy led me on his bike to a capsule a couple of blocks away.
My second day in Hiroshima was twice as hot as the first day. I think the river was starting to bubble whilst roads slithered away from their original resting place...
Today my goal was to visit Hiroshima Castle. This was a moderately interesting castle which gave a brief insight into the history of Hiroshima. For those of you that aren't aware (as I wasn't) Hiroshima used to be a collection of many small islands. Some king dude had the insight to make it a shipping port. As the same time, the silt from the mining up the river was washed downstream and gradually built the area into a single land mass. Pretty cool I think!
The other fun thing about Hiroshima is that the city is run by trams. The tram system is nowhere near as extensive as Melbourne, however it's still fun.
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