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Up at 6:00am to get ready for a long day. Osaka JR train to Osaka-shin. Catch the Shinkansen to Hiroshima via Shin-Kobe and other sta­tions that mix together. The Hodge’s almost broke the whole sys­tem by insert­ing our Suica cards into the wrong machines. Friendly JR staff kindly help us for gaijin out.

Just like the blur of the Shinkansen passing in the oppos­ite dir­ec­tion, with many many tun­nels. And also like yes­ter­day, all land us used. Fukuyama has a large cath­olic cathed­ral clearly vis­ible in the centre of the town.

Avril and Liam had fun feed­ing me unknown Japan­ese foods. They tasted awful. Do not want.

Off at Hiroshima, and a short walk to the Street Cars. Choice: Y600 for a day ticket or Y150 for each trip. A pic­ture of the rail­way sta­tion from August 1945 clearly demol­ished, over 1.2kms away from the hypo­centre brings you back to the real­ity why Hiroshima is now a city name every­one recognises.

The street car takes you on a short 20 minute ride into history.

The Atomic Dome is a silent, yet stark reminder of our his­tory. Our shared his­tory. Not a pleas­ant his­tory at all.

The build­ing, right next to the Aioi Bridge, is one of the only build­ings to sur­vive. The hypo­centre (the ground nearest the blast, the blast being only 580m from the ground). The ori­ginal iron girders are now inside in the Peace Museum. There is a slight twist against the force of the blast. Touch­ing items such as roof­ing tiles that have bubbled; bricks that have fused together: brings home the blast.

The city of Hiroshima has left the Atomic dome as a reminder to us all of the effects of the bomb. The whole area of the Peace Park was once a bust­ling part of the city centre. Now gone. Vari­ous peace organ­isa­tions pop­u­late the edges of the park, along with statues. These organ­isa­tions present the Japan­ese per­spect­ive on Amer­ican mil­it­ar­ism — and vastly dif­fer­ent to the sit­ting on the fence of the Peace Museum.

The museum shows how Hiroshima was the home of the 5^th Divi­sion (note: this divi­sion served in Java and Timor dur­ing WW2) and alter the HQ of the Second Gen­eral Army. The task­ing doc­u­ments from US Mil­it­ary com­mand do not men­tion the mil­it­ary nature of the target.

No mat­ter how man jus­ti­fies his hor­rific actions to other men: reli­gion, ideo­logy, per­ceived dif­fer­ences; the hor­rors of war are clearly on show at Hiroshima. It is neither shrine nor temple. It is a liv­ing reminder of what humans can do to oth­ers. No mat­ter the couch­ing in stra­tegic, polit­ical or tac­tical terms: war is most unwanted.

There are many clocks in the Peace Museum at stuck on 8:15am. The time that the bomb blast hit. Hiroshima remains staunchly anti-nuclear weapons to this day. And with clear justification.

The Peace Museum, with its pur­pose­ful high­light­ing of the effects on chil­dren: show­ing the inno­cents in the war; height­ens the par­ent in all of us.  Whilst the tech­no­logy of the bomb is shown with a men­acing scale rep­lica of the bomb sit­ting over a part of the dis­play — all seem to dis­reg­ard it. The after-effects are rightly shown.

Another mov­ing place to visit is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Hall. It has a down­ward spiralling walk­way into a room. This room has a 360degree pic­ture of Hiroshima, post bomb. How­ever, this picture’s dark/light is made from the names of 140,000 (vari­ous places in Hiroshima report 350,000) vic­tims. It is a power­ful display.

On our long return to the Shinkansen sta­tion, we pass through many malls and shops. Strangely, a Yel­low Sub­mar­ine store selling B29 mod­els sits dir­ectly under­neath the hypocentre.

We point at menus, get more strange food; and return to Osaka via Shinkansen and JR. Hotel at 9.15pm.

Hiroshima is no mod­ern shrine. It’s name is the shrine.