Japan 2017: Hiroshima 4/6/2017

.We have an early morning meeting of 8.10am. We head off to Miyajima island to visit the Itsukushima Shrine and the Daishoin temple. We have to travel by ferry to the island. The ferries run every ten minutes and carry both cars and people. There are two companies running ferries. It is very hectic. It is a clear day, bit cool in the morning but warms up quickly to high 20s.

As we approach the shore there is a torri gate standing out in the water. The shrine area covers a wide area, but the tide has gone out. It would have been a beautiful sight at high tide with the water lapping at the floorboards. We then move on to the temple. There is over 96 stes to the top, but Kari our guide takes us on a different route. As we head up we pass hundreds of miniature statues with beanies on. It is a bizarre sight. We get to the top and we have a great view. There are a number of temples around and there is avbuilding which houses models of the 88 temples that we heard about earlier. Our guide Kari was impressed when we told her we had been to number one in Tokushima. We have lunch on the island.

After lunch we travel to the bomb centre at Hiroshima. It is very moving as it was at Nagasaki. We both thought that Nagasaki peace park was better than Hiroshima. However the blast at Nagasaki was considerably larger. Again it upsets me that such destructive bombs were dropped without warning and giving the Japanese a chance to surrender. The USA had 49 practice runs dropping fake bombs on Japan to prepare for the final run. To be able to do that meant there was none to very little air defence left to the Japanese.

After the bomb museum we go back to the hotel and have free time and dinner is at our arrangements. Ann is hanging out for a burger so we might have room service.

Tomorrow we had off to Osaka on the Shinkansen.