Not everyone wanted to head to Hiroshima today so just Jim and I took the Shinkansen from Kyoto to Hiroshima. We had to take a connecting train in Shin-Osaka to get to Hiroshima. Little did we know, that train actually goes through and stops in Shin-Kobe, where our ship is docked. Had we known this before we would have just headed back to the ship last night to sleep there then head to Hiroshima.
The train wasn’t too long, a little less than two hours. Learning from our earlier mistakes and being limited for time, we headed straight for the tourist information center to figure out how to get to the Hiroshima Peace Park. It actually ended up being really easy, we can just take a trolly there from the train station. I thought I was going to lose Jim for a few minutes while we were in the train station because they were showing the Yankees – Red Sox game live on TV. Since it was the morning in Japan, we were able to watch Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. Luckily I was able to pull him away from the TV and we were able to get to the Peace Park. The trolly is a great idea other than the fact that I moves at a pace near 2mph.
Right when we got off of the trolly we were at the A-Bomb Dome, a building that somehow survived the blast even though it was located near the epicenter of the explosion. After that there’s a beautiful park to walk through with a bunch of different monuments dedicated to different causes related to the bomb on Hiroshima, including the flame that won’t be put out until all nuclear weapons are dismantled and the children’s memorial. All very powerful
Next we went into the a-bomb museum located in the park. The museum is centered on peace, not about how terrible the Americans were for dropping the bomb. In a couple exhibits they even say that the Japanese did some pretty terrible things during the war, so I never got the feeling of a one-sided museum like I did in Japan. The two hours we spent in the museum wasn’t nearly enough. We started out going through the museum and stopping to read everything, then had to pick up the pace because we were running out of time. I think we could have easily spent 5+ hours in the museum, not even counting the surrounding park area. Overall an excellent museum and dedication to the people of Hiroshima and the atrocities that come from a nuclear attack and war in general. They did a great job of putting everything together in an appropriate manner to get their message across. It was so powerful. I would have to say that my feelings surrounding the decision to drop the bomb definitely changed after walking through there.
Being very short on time now, we walked through the rest of the park (which was very beautiful) then grabbed a taxi back to the train station. We both concluded that the trolly would definitely get us there too late. Being so short on time we had to suck it up and eat at a McDonalds. I really don’t like to do that just because we’re in Japan I think we should experience Japanese food. However, the McDonalds tasted so good. All of the McDonalds in Japan advertise this ‘Mega Mac’ which is essentially a double Big Mac. Two patties instead of one, so I decided that I had to try it. It was good, but I think I was expecting better. You know the difference between a cheeseburger and a double cheeseburger? This wasn’t even close to that. It just tasted like a big Big Mac, which isn’t bad by any means. We were able to make it to our train just in time, we had less than 5 minutes to spare before it left.
Having not spent any time in Kobe where our ship was docked, we wanted to go out to dinner for some Kobe Beef, supposedly the best beef in the world. While it was relatively expensive I would have to agree that it was the best steak I’ve ever had, hands down. Well worth the money we had to spend on it. We ate at this restaurant where they cook everything right in front of you (I forget what those restaurants are called). It was so tasty it’s hard for me to talk about it right now because I’m hungry and that was probably the best meal I’ve ever had in my life. It even beats the Peking Duck in Beijing.
After dinner we just headed back to the ship in just enough time to get on the ship. Luckily we didn’t have any bags so we could skip that part of the security check.
Japan is awesome. I would have to put it at #2 on the list of countries we visited. I just wish we had more time here!
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