Hey Hive!
If you missed the last post, we just started recounting our trip to Hiroshima back in April 2019! Sean had won some free air tickets to Hiroshima from a lucky draw sponsored by one of the local banks in Singapore, DBS! Since we've never been, we decided that was a good chance to explore the Chūgoku region!
So last week, we took an overnight flight and arrived in Hiroshima Airport, checked into a small little hotel called Chisun Hotel! It was quite compact but we didn't mind. We spent half the day exploring our neighbourhood and even checked out a retro video game store! I left the post off on a cliffhanger though right before we saw a park of sakura! So lets-a-go!
7 April 2019. Sunday.
After walking through a shotengai, we found a park across this river that had very lovely cherry blossoms! We thought we'd be too late to see them but turns out it was perfect timing!
There was also a bridge across the river and we initially thought that the park was crowded because of all the sakura and it was a weekend. But turns out we stumbled onto one of Hiroshima's key landmarks!
Because we were actually not far from where Hiroshima got hit with the atomic bomb back in WWII! In fact, this bridge called Motoyasu Bridge is only 130m away from the hypocenter of the blast! Luckily the bridge itself was spared from collapse, so it's become an important structure to estimate the precise location of the hypocenter.
It's truly a tragedy what happened in 1945, but in true Japanese fashion, Hiroshima has long recovered, recuperated and been restored. I'm no history buff by any stretch, but it did feel surreal to be crossing this bridge.
The park we arrived in was absolutely beautiful though! There were a lot of people around, mostly laying out blankets and having picnics, just enjoying the spring sunshine.
The flowers were definitely what caught my eye though, obviously. We'd never seen sakura up close before other than in Finland, curiously enough. It was just a small display though not trees and crowns full of them like here!
It was absolutely beautiful! I wish there wasn't so many people around so we could sit down and admire the flowers too.
It's not the usual pink sakura but these looked just as lovely imo.
And since it was our first time experiencing hanami (or cherry blossom viewing) you can be absolutely sure we took a whole load of pics!
It did get quite warm in the sun though.
Everything was just so pretty! I couldn't believe we were actually surrounded by sakura!
I did try to smell the flowers too, but they didn't really have much of a scent tbh.
It was lovely just walking down the park and looking at all the pretty flowers! Turns out the park we were in was actually Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park because we eventually we came to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Hall:
There was even a very lovely statue there with sakura trees all around that looked so perfect.
Unfortunately, I couldn't read what the statue was called or the plaque beside it since it was all in Japanese. But the wind was blowing the cherry blossoms from the trees and they were falling to the ground just like snow! It looked so beautiful!
Here's a really quick video I took! Sorry it's in portrait mode.
Walking along we even saw some really vibrant tulips!
They looked so beautiful too, and what a nice contrast to the yellow-ish green trees around!
There was also this huge bell in the park which was actually called the Bell of Peace! It's dedicated as a symbol of Hiroshima's aspiration to let all nuclear wars be gone and let national live in peace, which I thought was just lovely.
And this was one of the key Hiroshima A-Bomb memorials - the A-Bomb Dome!
This was a nice vantage point to photograph it, but since it was across the river we would have to cross the bridge again to get to it.
So back on the bridge we go! This wasn't the exact same bridge we crossed before obviously. And I think this one had a better view tbh.
But we walked until we eventually reached the dome! It is Hiroshima's former Industrial Promotion Hall, built in 1914-15, and designed by acclaimed Czech architect Jan Letzel.
Located just 200 m west of the hypocenter of the nuclear explosion, the former Industrial Promotion Hall was one of very few buildings to remain standing in a 3 km radius of the bombing. Parts of the concrete in the building were burnt and even melted, exposing the steel frame of the dome to the skies. (Source: Japanvisitor.com)
We couldn't actually go into the dome I think, mainly because of safety. But just looking at it felt surreal. And I think everyone around it felt compelled to be quiet and respectful.
Eventually we started making our way back and since we were getting hungry, we stopped by one of our favourite cafes for a snack!
We got a refreshing mango drink and chocolate croissant from Choco Cro and after resting our feet for a while, we headed back to our hotel to rest up before dinner.
On the way back though, we came across a very curious vending machine that sells dashi, aka soup stock! I think that was the first time we ever saw a vending machine selling dashi, but we joked that people might think it was tea or something and accidentally drink it. XD
After we rested up in our hotel for a bit, we went to go grab dinner from one of our favourite restaurant chains - Gyoza Osho! We shared a soba, mapo tofu set and ordered some gyoza of course!
The gyoza was panfried to perfection, crispy on the bottom, soft on top and absolutely delicious! Sean also really enjoyed the mapo tofu and the soba was alright.
After that we went to get snacks and drinks from the Donki Hote near our hotel and saw this looong pack of kaki no tane snacks! They're basically small crescent-shaped fragments of senbei (soy-flavored rice crisps), and peanuts and are pretty delicious!
We ended up with 2 baskets full of snacks! The perfect end to a perfect first day!
Thanks so much for reading! Stay tuned for more cherry blossoms as we explore another city next week!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #146 (Hiroshima): Jetting Off and Gaming On!
