Day 3: Hiroshima

Most of today was traveling, so this should be short. There were no surprise festivals, earthquakes, weddings, or injuries on the train. We went 4 hours from Tokyo (I'll miss you, Tokyo!) to Hiroshima. Note: Bento boxes are delicious and Japanese scenery is very pretty for the first hour. Then, it all begins to look the same.

Our hotel is absolutely massive. It's like a white-tiled, hugely massive rectangular thing with a big tower on one side. I have no words. It's huge. It's also ugly.

We walked through a market (modern, though. Clothing, cute accessories, electronics, phone plans. I bought socks.) to get to the Okonomiyaki place for dinner (okonomiyaki = a pancake cooked under noodles and other toppings). Hiroshima is also apparently famous for their oysters. I got some at dinner and yeah, they were pretty tasty. Sorry Half Shells, you've been replaced.

I'm about to say something very obvious: Hiroshima can be really depressing. I might be a special snowflake here, but I feel ridiculously guilty for being American in Hiroshima. After dinner we walked to the A-Bomb Dome (Old government building 160 meters from the epicenter of the blast. Everyone in it was killed instantly, but the burned out shell is still there as a reminder that nukes are really bad things.) and I felt kind of sick to my stomach. We can see 2 graveyards from the window of our hotel room. I have no clue if they're modern or bomb-related, but the fact that this city was leveled and everyone in it killed kind of makes that irrelevant. They're still reminders of death and, by extension, what was done here. An organization of survivors have posted artwork around the city depicting that night to keep people aware of the horrors of nuclear weapons and why they should be banned. I took a picture of a poem that was pretty gut-wrenching. We might go to the Peace Museum tomorrow, and I'm willing and ready, but I have a feeling that my reaction will be kind of like what it was after the Holocaust Museum: nausea, shock, and horror, but this time with a heaping tablespoon of guilt.

Love,

Leah Murphy, uncomfortable explorer