Hiroshima day trip

Wednesday was a huge day: we did a day trip to Hiroshima. We certainly got amazing value from our Japan Rail pass too, as all of our transport for the day was covered by it!

After arriving in Hiroshima we transferred to a local train line to go to Miyajima-guchi. From there you can catch a ferry to Miyajima which is an island in Hiroshima Bay. It was raining slightly and this gave the island a misty, ethereal ambience. 

As soon as we left the ferry terminal we saw a woman photographing what looked like a fake deer beside an information sign. Then the deer moved! As we went closer, we saw another deer beyond. And as we continued round towards the shrine we found lots more, including a couple of fawns, mostly sheltering under trees, awnings and signs to get out of the rain.

We walked around the waterfront to the Itsukushima Shinto Shrine. On the way there were great views of the shrine's Torii which is out in the sea.

The shrine is built out over the water and lines up with the Torii. We visited part way between high and low tide, but apparently at high tide the shrine appears to be floating on the water

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After visiting the shrine we walked up to a pagoda that we could see from the shrine. Then we walked back towards the ferry, looking in the shops and stopping for lunch in a restaurant on the main street. We also stopped by the world's largest rice paddle for a few photos.

We took the ferry back to Miyajima-guchi and then caught the train back to Hiroshima Station, where we were able to hop on the tourist sight seeing loop bus. We were headed for the Peace Park, but decided to get off at Hiroshima Castle for a quick look around the outside.

We walked through the Peace Park stopping at the Atomic Bomb Dome. This building was almost directly below where the bomb detonated and was one of the few buildings left standing. It's a haunting reminder of what happened. 

As we stopped at the Peace Flame, which will only by extinguished once all nuclear weapons have been dismantled, a group of school children approached us. They were practising their English and asked us some questions, and Ed wrote a message in their workbook and marked New Zealand on their map. 

The Peace Musuem was incredibly moving. We hadn't realised that so many of the victims were children who had been assigned to perform demolition work in the city centre. The stories, artifacts and exhibits were heartbreaking - the scars of an absolute atrocity.

After visiting the museum we walked back through the Peace Park visiting the memorials and viewing the A-bomb Dome from across the river.