Our Day in Hiroshima: Peace Park, Paper Cranes & Getting Slightly Lost
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Time to read 3 min
Our day in Hiroshima started with a bit of a surprise.
I'd planned our transport into the city based on where I thought our ship would be docking.
We didn't dock there.
Cue some fairly quick rearranging of plans. 😂
It was also at this point that I discovered something else I hadn't fully appreciated when planning our day:
Hiroshima is big.
I'd looked at maps, researched the places we wanted to visit and worked out roughly how we'd get around, but I hadn't really grasped the size of the city or the distances involved.
Lesson learned.
Arriving in Hiroshima
Once we'd reshuffled our transport arrangements, we made our way into the city.
Unfortunately, the weather wasn't particularly interested in cooperating with us.
By the time we arrived it was cold, wet and windy. I'd also made some questionable wardrobe decisions that morning and hadn't exactly dressed any of us appropriately for the conditions.
The kids weren't their usual happy, chirpy selves.
Can't imagine why. 😬
But Hiroshima was somewhere I'd really wanted us to experience, so we rugged up as best we could and headed towards Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
It's difficult to describe visiting the Peace Park without slipping into clichés.
We'd obviously learnt about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima before travelling there, but standing in the city and seeing the places we'd previously only read about was very different.
The Atomic Bomb Dome was one of our first stops.
The former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall was close to the hypocentre of the atomic bomb when it exploded over Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Parts of the building remained standing, and the preserved ruins are now one of the most recognisable symbols of Hiroshima.
Seeing it in person was sobering.
From there, we continued through the park towards the Children's Peace Monument.
Sadako, the Paper Cranes and the Children's Peace Monument
The Children's Peace Monument was particularly meaningful to visit with the kids.
The monument commemorates the children who died as a result of the atomic bombing and is closely associated with Sadako Sasaki, who was two years old when the bomb was dropped.
Sadako survived the bombing but later developed leukaemia. While she was in hospital, she folded paper cranes, inspired by the Japanese tradition that folding 1,000 cranes could grant a wish.
Her story became known around the world, and today people continue to send colourful strings of folded paper cranes to Hiroshima as messages of peace.
Thousands of them are displayed around the Children's Peace Monument.
Seeing the sheer number of cranes in person was quite something. Individual pieces of folded paper had been combined into enormous, colourful displays, many with messages and images incorporated into them.
It's one of the parts of Hiroshima that has really stayed with me.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
We also visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
This isn't somewhere I felt particularly inclined to take lots of photos.
The museum documents Hiroshima before and after the bombing and tells the stories of the people who experienced it. Some of the exhibits are confronting, as you'd expect given the subject matter.
I did photograph some of the plaques and information displays, which I'll include here, but for the most part we simply walked through and took it in.
Visiting with children also meant allowing them to process what they were seeing in their own way.
Between the Atomic Bomb Dome, Children's Peace Monument and museum, we'd spent quite a bit of time in the Peace Park by the time we were ready to move on.
And we were also cold.
Very cold. 🥶
Time to Find Some Shops
Our next plan was considerably lighter: Hondori Shopping Street.
Hondori is a covered pedestrian shopping arcade in central Hiroshima, not far from the Peace Park, filled with shops, restaurants and cafés.
Covered sounded particularly appealing by this stage.
There was just one problem.
We needed to find it.
We quickly discovered that our phone signal wasn't particularly good around some of the shopping streets. Google Maps would appear to know where we were... and then apparently change its mind.
We took a wrong turn.
Then another one.
There may have been several more.
Eventually, after wandering considerably more of central Hiroshima than originally intended, we found Hondori.
At least we got to see more of the city. 😂
Not Quite the Day I'd Planned
Our day in Hiroshima wasn't particularly polished.
We arrived at a different port than I'd expected, had to change our transport plans, discovered Hiroshima was considerably bigger than I'd realised, got thoroughly cold and wet and then temporarily lost our ability to navigate.
But none of that took away from visiting the Peace Park.
The Atomic Bomb Dome, Children's Peace Monument and thousands of paper cranes are things I'm very glad the kids and I had the opportunity to see together.
And the day gave me a couple of practical lessons for future Japanese port days too.
Check the actual cruise terminal, don't assume distances on a map are as small as they look, download an offline map...
...and perhaps check the weather forecast a bit more closely before deciding what everyone should wear.
That last one really shouldn't have required a trip to Hiroshima to learn. 🤦♀️