Hiroshima

What can I say about this diverse and fantastic city. First of all, like it or lump it, Hiroshima is now a tourist mecca. As such, the provisions made for any dumbass, non-Japanese speaking yokel are second to none. In particular, there's a very useful map, which not only stands to highlight the city's post-atomic reconstruction (ie, a perfect grid), but provides any number of useful tips for the hapless traveller, including places to eat, things to see and clubs in which to dance and drink the night away.

It's unfortunate Stu and I only had a day and a half to explore the possibilities offered by a city that is at once a disturbing mermorial to a terrible day in history, and a vibrant, fun city in its own right. It has the makings of a really great place to live or to visit, and I will definitely go back. We started out by having the local version of Okonomiyaki, native to this region, in Okonomi-Mura, the birthplace of this unique dish. Okonomiyaki, Hiroshima style is comprised of meat, usually pork, thinly sliced, plus cabbage, spring onions, fish flakes, a speacial kind of batter, eggs, noodles and a special barbeque sauce, all painstainkingly layered infront of you on a massive barbeque plate that acts as both cooktop and plate. It was truly delicious, all the more so for being accompanied by the musings of a friendly man on his break who just happened to speak wonderful English.

We then headed out to track down the Peace Museum, hoping to do all our Hiroshima city musts before we headed out to Myajima the next day. As it happens, we got lost in the pre-dusk light and ended up on the complete opposite side of town, leaving us no time to get to the Museum that day. Turned out for the best anyway, the next day was wet and grey, perfect for the museums, not so perfect for the seascape view of the famed Torri of Myajima. Next time. So the next day we headed to 3 different museums, including the prefectural art museum, complete with local artists and a random Dali (The Dream of Venus). Surprising that we were able to get such a lot in, considering we had to be back to catch the 3pm train to Himeji (again, locals, about 4 hours, but hey, a free ride!).

The night before we went to a local restaurant run by a Peruvian family with Japanese relations. The food was eclectic and delicious, I had fajitas of all things! The best part however, was the nomi-hodi (Pipi, you'll recall a crazy afternoon in Otaru??). Basically, the deal was if you ordered 1000yen ($10) of food, you'd get 1.5 hours of drinking, cocktails, beer, wine, etc, anything. We took full advantage, again proving that such a system's economic success is heavily dependent on the clientelle. Get a couple of beer-belly westerners in there, and kiss goodbye to your profit margin.

After that we went to meet a fellow Nova teacher from Adelaide, Lee and his girlfriend. We had a nice drink with them, and then went to claim the free drink promised us by our friendly Peruvian waiter at his friend's bar. We stumbled back to our small, but clean and functional hotel room at about 3am. We could have gone on, but there was so much to do the next day!

The Peace memorial and the museum were disturbing to say the least, but I can't help but think that some of the atmosphere was lost in the shrieks and chatter of what seemed like thousands of excitable students and tourists. Still, it gave you are very clear idea of what happened at 8:15am that day the bomb dropped, sometimes too clear. Endless pictures of charred skin and radiation scars were sickening in their numeracy. The photographs of giant craters marking the spaces once occupied by massive structures, the sheer expanse of flat, burnt-out land that had been a bustling city 24 hours prior, were the most powerful indictement of warfare I can imagine. As for the A-Bomb Dome, the lone structure that remained in some kind of recognisable form after the blast, was in fact at the hypercentre of the blast, and perhaps more amazingly, survived the effort to wipe all visual reminders of the blast from Hiroshima (and Japan's) collective psyche, stood alone in Peace Park. It stands as it stood that day, unaltered, preserved in its state of semi-rubble. It was beautiful and terrible.