Three Days in Hiroshima

The ancient Torii Gate on Miyajima Island

(Originally posted 12/11/2017)

We are on our way back to Tokyo today after spending the last three days in Hiroshima. We headed out from Tokyo on the Shinkansen Super Express bullet train and in a mere four hours we had travelled the 1,200 km to Hiroshima.  Japanese technology in action.

One of the prominent reminders of Hiroshima's past

Hiroshima is known around the world as the first city to ever suffer an atomic bombing. On a blue sky morning in August of 1945 the United States made the fateful move they hoped would end the Second World War and opened the door to the modern nuclear age in the process.  The devastation was so great that it was said no living thing would survive in the city for at least 70 years. Only ash and some stones remained after temperatures on the ground flashed to well over 5000 degrees celcius.  Today, certain buildings have been preserved in their mangled state as a testament to the power of these weapons and, more subtly, as a reminder of humankind's brutality.  Few survived the ordeal, but fortunately not all perished and we were lucky enough to meet one of those individuals.

Now in his eighties the man was ten years old when the bomb struck. He has spent the rest of his life recounting his experience in the hope that no one else will ever encounter similar tragedy.. The story he shared was heart wrenching and there were many tears in the audience, including from our guide and translator, as he recalled the truly unimaginable horrors of that morning and the days that followed.  Needless to say that words, whether coming from me or someone that lived through the experience, cannot describe it adequately.  The meeting was a powerful ending to our day touring the Hiroshima Peace Park.  I'm sure talking about deterrence, proliferation, and the other political aspects of nuclear weapons as we so often do in international affairs will now come with a bit more weight attached. 

Iwakuni Castle 

Of course modern Hiroshima sprang up well before the 70 year timeline that had been predicted and is now home to over two million people.  Our group was given the chance to get to know some of those people over a home stay.  We were billeted out to local families in pairs and each went our separate ways. Charles and I were adopted by a young couple and their four years old son who first took us out to lunch at a popular restaurant. Despite the fact that this was our first interaction it was almost as if they knew me well as our next stop was a 17th century castle from the days of the samurai. The fortress was impressive in its own right and boasted incredible views of the surrounding mountains and coastline.

Over the 24 hours we spent with the Kondo family what surprised me most weren't the differences from life in Canada, but the similarities. That's not to say the differences were hard to see. Having cod roe and raw egg for breakfast and reserving bath water for the next person stand out among the more prominent foreign experiences. But in a broader sense, daily life in Hiroshima is pretty relateable to life in Canada.  We spent the afternoon entertaining young Ryota by playing Hot Wheels and various card games.  Keiko's parents joined us for dinner which brought an oddly reminiscent feeling to the house.  Dinners at home with my own grandparents were a common feature of my childhood and to see this set of grandparents spoil their grandson brought back many close memories.  It may have helped that they brought a bottle of sake which we promptly polished off.  In the morning we walked the short distance to a small park where players from the local Hiroshima Carp baseball team were posing for pictures and playing catch with kids.  The local fire department was running the grill and even though they were handing out oysters instead of hot dogs the atmosphere and participants were not all that different from what you'd expect to see at the park in my own hometown.  There are certainly universal values that can be seen around the world and family and community are important everywhere.


Our three day stay in Hiroshima included a bizarre range of ups and downs in such a short period of time.  From hearing the stories of someone who is hopefully among the last people to experience an atomic bomb to laughing around the dining room table with our host family.  The experiences we had come from a side of Japan that few foreigners are privileged to encounter and have helped add a new depth of colour to my view of the country.