Haunting Memories Of Hiroshima...

Our day trip to Hiroshima drew to a close as we headed from Hiroshima station to Shin Osaka.

Crowded but absolutely spic and span, that's a distinctive feature that makes Japan and Japanese so different. They are one of the most orderly and disciplined cultures I have seen...

A Mazda sportscar on display at Hiroshima station...

All queued up in a disciplined fashion!

Young and old, all follow the unwritten rules, even when no one is looking. That speaks a lot about their positive and disciplined mentality...

Our train, the Nozomi is expected to arrive after this train leaves...

Our reserved seats are in Car 6, of the Nozomi that is expected in a few moments....

Our tickets...

And we board the train headed to Shin Osaka and onward to Tokyo...

We relaxed on the way back to Shin Osaka and I got immersed in deep thought about the events that occurred during the Second World War that led to the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

I recall my visit to the Changi Museum and the National Museum in Singapore that documented in detail the atrocities the region faced when they were under Japanese occupation. And the Sook Ching massacre immediately came to mind. Indeed Japanese occupation was devastating for the region. 

Japan's war machine had to be stopped. And it was, but at what cost?

Hearing of tragic stories from Hiroshima - stories of melting human flesh, vaporising human bodies and people just vanishing without a traces made me shudder and tremble. And then there was this tragic story of Sadako - a charming innocent, little girl who was lost to a fate that was determined by people who were in no way connected to her, and for no fault of hers. Did she deserve the fate that she met?

In many other ways, similar tragedies are playing out today, in different parts of the world.

But the horrors of war haven't taught people anything - I wonder why can't people live in contentment? Why can't people let others live?

Perhaps it is an innate lust for power and money that pushes men to become ogres like those who led these nations to war, and bringing an unquantifiable misery to their people...

These thoughts haunted me as walked back to our hotel in Dojimahama...

And I am sure these thoughts will disturb me for days...

I Don't Want Nirvana! I Want Great Food, Always! -- Part XIX - Amazing Fujiwara Ramen...

The whole trip around the Heiwa Kinen Koen, Genbaku Dome and the Hypocenter left us with quite an appetite. We were craving hot food, we were craving ramen...

As we were completing our round of the area, we stopped by at what is called the Rest House building today to buy some souvenirs.

This location was home to the Taishoya Kimono shop, which was housed in a modern-looking, reinforced-concrete structure was quite unusual at that time when most buildings were made of wood. As the Second World War progressed, the kimono store had to shut shop in December 1943, due to a law restricting textile sale. 

On August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb exploded only 170 meters from this building and the roof was crushed, the interior destroyed and everything consumable burned except in the basement. The building however did retain its basic shape. There was only one survivor - a man who had gone down to the basement to get documents. He died in June 1982. The basement room is preserved as it was just after the bomb exploded.

While we were shopping around for souvenirs, we asked the manager if he could suggest a place for good ramen. He directed us across the Motoyasu Bridge to the Fujiwara ramen, where we were told, we would get the best ramen. He was curious to know where we were from and when told him we belonged to India, his face lit and he said he had always wanted to visit India. Again... one more example of our incredible, but under-rated soft-power!

Walking though the neighbourhood...

Finally at Fujiwara...

Forget the spellings, but "Welcome to Hiroshima (in) Peace!!"...

Waiting for our ramens to get ready...

This is a charming little place..

And here come the ramen...

Ramen is a Japanese noodle soup dish, which consists of Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a meat or fish-based broth, flavored with soy sauce or miso and with toppings such as sliced pork, nori  or dried seaweed  and green onions...

We devoured the ramen, slurped every drop of the flavourful soup and felt content. And that's when it dawned on us - we've got to head back to Hiroshima station to catch the Shinkansen to Osaka...

And we said our goodbyes to Fujiwara ramen and made a dash for the Genbaku Dome-mae tramcar station...

Genbaku Dome And The Hypocenter...

Right at the periphery of the Heiwa Kinen Koen stands the Hiroshima Peace Memorial or the Genbaku Dome, which has come to be identified as the symbol of Hiroshima.

The Genbaku Dome was the only structure near the hypocenter that survived the catastrophe that struck Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and it remains in the same condition as it was right after the explosion, ostensibly to remind the world of the grim realities of nuclear warfare. 

This building used to be the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. Originally designed by the Czech architect Jan Letzel, the design incorporated a distinctive dome at the highest part of the building. Construction was completed in  1915. The building was used for arts and educational exhibitions...

The building is located just 160 metres from the Hypocenter and since the explosion happened almost directly overhead, the building was able to retain its shape. The building's vertical columns were able to resist the nearly vertical downward force of the blast, and parts of the concrete and brick outer walls remained intact. Everyone inside the building was killed instantly...

Weathering and deterioration of the Dome continued after the war. The Hiroshima City Council declared in 1966 that it intended to indefinitely preserve the structure, and was renamed as the "Genbaku Dome" or the Atomic Dome. Preservation work on the Genbaku Dome was completed in 1967...

Today, the Genbaku Dome stands almost exactly as it did after the bombing on August 6, 1945. Changes to the ruins were the bare minimum, and were meant to ensure the stability of the structure, given that Japan is located in a zone of significant seismic activity...

In December 1996, the Genbaku Dome was registered on the UNESCO World Heritage List based on its survival from a destructive force, the first use of nuclear weapons on a human population and its representation as a symbol of peace. Both China and the United States had reservations on this idea...

And today it serves as a grim reminder of what happened on that fateful day...

...and also symbolises a warning to humanity of what could happen if nations act irresponsibly!

Sarugaku-cho was one of the liveliest neighbourhoods in Hiroshima and was completely obliterated after the bombing...

The Zero Milestone of Hiroshima city...

At the Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students...

To make up for the labor shortage during the Second World War, Japan enacted a law that required students in middle school and higher grades to perform labour service. In Hiroshima, many students were required to participate in demolishing buildings to create fire-breaks to limit damage by fire in the event of air attacks...

 In Hiroshima, of the 8400 students working as labour, about 6300 died on the day of the bombing...

The bereaved families began donated funds to build this tower...

Origami cranes at the tower...

Murals representing the efforts those students had put in...

And we move towards the Hypocenter...

This is the Hypocenter - the bomb exploded nearly 600 metres above this point. There was a hospital here by the name of Shima Hospital, which had been operated here since 1780 by the Shima family. On that fateful day, 80 people present there - medical staff and patients died instantly. The head of the hospital, Dr. Kaoru Shima was was in a neighbouring city where he had gone to assist a colleague with a difficult operation alongwith an attending nurse - they were the only survivors of the Shima Hospital staff.

Dr. Shima returned to Hiroshima on the night of August 6, 1945 and started treatment of injured people immediately. The next day, Dr. Shima returned to the location where the hospital stood and found an operation tool he had purchased in the United States as the only remaining trace of the structure. He found a large quantity of bleached bones in the debris, as human flesh had vapourised immediately as the bomb exploded.

Today, the Shima family still runs a clinic here which goes by the name Shima Geka Naika.

We head a quick meal close by and headed to Genbaku Dome-mae tramcar station to catch a tram back to Hiroshima station...

広島平和記念公園 Heiwa Kinen Koen - Where Time Stands Still... Part II

Numbed and shocked after seeing the aftermath of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, we proceeded back to Heiwa Kinen Koen to see the monuments there.

We stopped by at the Cenotaph -  the memorial Cenotaph hoped to reconstruct the ruined Hiroshima as a peaceful city. An ex-professor of Tokyo University, Tange Kenzo, designed the monument and its saddle-shaped roof - symbolic as though protecting nuclear victims from rain... 

The cenotaph carries an epitaph: "Let All The Souls Rest in Peace, For The Error Shall Not Be Repeated". The central stone room carries the list of name of A-bomb victims...

Apparently, in about 3 weeks, President Obama of the United States is expected to visit Hiroshima. The world would be watching whether the President would apologise for the attack...

Moving to the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound...

The mound is a large, grass-covered knoll that contains the ashes of 70,000 unidentified victims of the bomb...

Within the mound lies a vault that contains ashes of roughly 70,000 victims. These were persons whose ashes were unclaimed because the entire family had perished or because they were persons of unknown identity. Every year, Hiroshima City publishes a list of people whose identity has been learned, hoping that relatives will emerge to claim the ashes. Of the 2,432 individual containers of ashes in the vault in 1955, 824 remain unclaimed and continue to rest in this memorial mound...

The Bell of Peace...

Visitors are encouraged to ring the bell...

And now we move on the Genbaku Dome...