Hiroshima Japan – A somber start, but top rated finish!
I arrived in Hiroshima very early in the morning which enabled me to get a full day of sightseeing in. Obviously the main plan surrounded the Atomic bomb sites in the town. I walked to the peace park and had to wait until 10am for the museum to open. So I saw the atomic bomb dome, which is one of the few remaining buildings left intact anywhere around ground zero.
It is thought that because it was very close to the blast epicentre, the force from the bomb was directed more down rather than laterally which may have allowed it to stay standing. Much conservation work has been performed on the building to reduce the risk of it falling down as it is a pretty stark reminder of what happened here. I wandered around the pretty extensive park they have established in the area near the epicenter, saw the eternal flame and memorial monument.
The flame is hopefully not eternal because it will be extinguish when all known nuclear weapons have been destroyed.
After wandering around the park for a little bit, I still had some time to kill, so I went to the closest cafe and got some caffeine and used the wifi for a little bit. Finally when it was 10am, I mossied down to the museum and took a peak at what history there was inside. The museum was organized in the decision on why the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, details on the day, the aftermath and then the current state of nuclear weapons in the world, including legislation being passed to dismantle nuclear arsenals as well as the countries with nuclear weapons and what the goals for the future are.
They also had special exhibits which included artifacts, stories and photos of the aftermath and how the people were affected by the bomb.
This was one of my favorite museums of all of my travels. It was recently renovated, so the exhibits were pretty high tech and well laid out. The english was great and everything flowed really well and the story they told throughout the museum was excellent. I spent a decent ammount of time in there and then headed out to explore a little bit more. I stopped in at the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims which was a memorial and archives, which was an interesting quick stop.
It was a beautiful day and so I walked around, talked to a friend on the phone and then wandered down to Hiroshima castle.
Of the things I was told to do in Hiroshima other than the nuclear museum was to go to Miyajima island which was a quick train/ferry ride away. On the way to the train, I was looking to get some food and passed by what I can only describe as the Japanese swish chalet, but instead of rotisserie chicken, they sold meatloafs.
They had a bunch of old people dining there, the decor was dated similar to most older swiss chalets and the food was similarly plane. I LOVED IT!
After my lunch, I headed to the train and then jumped on the ferry to the island. The Island has a mountain which is popular to climb and also has deer wandering around similar to the park in Nara.
I had ambitions to climb to the top of the mountain but was told about a brewery on the island and when I walked by it said they were closing early so I couldn’t stop by after my hike.
I grabbed a few pints at the brewery and quickly lost my motivation to hike. I met some cool Aussie people which were really fun to hang out with but eventually time flew and the hike was no longer an option.
I walked around the island a little bit, took a photo of the famous floating Torri gate and then headed back into town on the ferry.
I wanted to try and get back in time to check out this beer bar I had heard about in an article that popped up when I typed in craft beer Hiroshima. I wrote a blog post about this experience, so check it out here to learn more.
The TLDR of the article is that there is this guy who opens a bar in the corner of his warehouse for 2 hours everyday. He claims to pour beer in 5 different ways to change the flavour of the beer and you are only allowed two beers before you have to leave. I do encourage you to read the article I posted about this experience because it was really friggin cool.
During this experience I met a guy who owned a brewery in Tokyo and was in Hiroshima checking out the local beer scene. After we left the beer pouring experience, we set out to check out one more brewery in the area called Kemby’s.
When we got there, it appeared as though there was a private function being held there and initially we were told that they were closed. Upon talking to the owner, he pulled up a chair for us at the back of the bar and allowed us to order some beer. This was a very very small scale operation and the brewmaster is actually the owner although he said he wanted to scale up the operation and hire a dedicated brew master. The beer was ok but not that interesting but the best part was that the event had ended and there was still food available. I asked if we could have some and the owner said that they were just going to throw it out, so help ourselves. The beer might not have been great and slightly overpriced, but the free food made the whole experience pretty good. I had a very long day and therefore decided it was time to go to bed. It was a super fun day and I really didn’t have much planned for the next day but I figured I would be able to figure something out.
When I woke up the next morning, I was greeted with some decently heavy rain and since I wasn’t planning on doing much that day anyways decided that I would just take it easy and not do too much. I chilled in the hostel for a bit but then a group of people decided to go exploring and to get breakfast, so i tagged along. We walked around town, went to a department store which had Niagara ice wine on display including one from Henry of Pelham which is located very close to my house growing up.
We went back to the hostel and met up with a guy who wanted to experience the local dish of Hiroshima which was Okonomiyaki, a type of pancake made of cabbage, green onion, bean sprout, noodles and pork. We had heard that there was a famous building which contained several places that made it and so myself and a guy I had met in the hostel, headed to the building to get some.
The recommendation was not lying, it was a four story building with several counters all serving exclusively Okonomiyaki. We sat down, ordered one with Udon and one with Soba and then split the two so we could try both. As expected they were delicious and went down pretty easily.
We then decided it would be a good idea to find some night life and so we went on a wild goose chase to try and find some good bars that were open on a Wednesday. I had to catch a night bus at 1am back to Kyoto, but was open to finding something to do before then.
The first few places we tried were closed and so we headed to a place that came recommended online. When we arrived we were the only ones in there and there was a karaoke machine, so we decided to give it a go. We sang song after song but since it was just the two of us it was a little awkward.
When it was time to pay, we thought the karaoke was free but it turns out it was almost $8 each, which was a surprise, but at that point we had no other choice. We paid for the beers and karaoke and I headed to the bus stop to await my bus to Kyoto where I would give it a few more days, since everyone said that you can easily spend 4 days in Kyoto and be thoroughly entertained.
I jumped on the bus and was on my way back to Kyoto.
