This is a blog dedicated to Travel as I have been to quite a few places around the world! I also blog about my Autism and the experiences I have gone through that have made me how I am today! Hope you enjoy and please feel free to follow this blog page!

To The Land Of The Rising Sun Part 25- Hiroshima

Hiroshima…well that will be giving me nightmares for a while!

Hello and Konnichiwa

今晩は.

This is our last full day in Japan so we decided to go to a place that to be honest, I’ve wanted to visit ever since I learned about it in school, Hiroshima! When you learn about the events between 1939 and 1945 on planet Earth, you have no doubt that this place will come up at some point and after today, I can completely understand the importance of what happened here and the effects that can still be felt today in 2017!

It has historical significance to all nations around the world, one reason is because it took warfare onto a whole new scale of destruction, one that amazingly is small compared to what mankind is capable of today. Nuclear bombs today could cause FAR much more destruction to us all than the ones dropped on Japan in 1945…scary stuff!

We arrived into Hiroshima on the Bullet Train and that was a bit upsetting because it would be one of the last times I go on one over here! The journey took a couple of hours and the amount of tunnels we went through along the way was insane….I counted 4 tunnels in 10 seconds at one point! They really tunneled their way along the country…It was cool though and I enjoyed the countryside that I saw along the way…so much greenery.

The sun was so hot today, I swear it was the hottest it had been since we got here….which was typical that the last day of any holiday was the best! What was annoying was yesterday in Himeji , the rain was so bad that I decided to bring my coat with me today!! BIG MISTAKE!! We were tired as well…we knew we were going home soon and we had mostly packed our stuff up at the hotel and were ready for an early start the next day for a LONG flight home to Britain so we wanted to enjoy Hiroshima as much as possible.

Fortunately, I could fit my coat into the bag I took with me everywhere…the only other place I have been that was a bit hotter than this was Pompeii but I’ll talk about that one soon in the future. We made our way into the town and we realised immediately that we weren’t sure how we were going to get to the Hiroshima memorial park site, the museum etc However, we found out shortly after that we could get an Electric Tram close to the sight so we headed to the area where we could board one and spend the next twenty minutes riding one to the sight and it was PACKED with people…we were concerned about being able to get off at the right place or not and like the bus, we had to pay once we wanted to get off.

We were successful on getting off at the right spot and our feelings changed from excited to shocked immediately by the sight of this building right here, one that remains standing from the bombing. It was preserved as a reminder as to what happened and what path the human race chose to take…was it the only way to end the war? I asked myself just from seeing this building.

We moved over to the park and down the path towards the museum but along the way, we saw a few more things that caught our eye a little bit, such as the Memorial Centopath Peace Flame that was lit in 1964 and will only be put out once all Nuclear Bombs have been destroyed and Humanity is free from Annihilation! …How hasn’t rain put it out though?

We entered the museum and wow…you learn so much here about the day and time after the Nuclear Bombing and what the true impact really was and it’s enough to make you weep…as a human, you can’t help but feel emotional over what the innocent people of Hiroshima went through on the 6th of August, 1945. I took pictures and I learnt many stories from different sources of the devastation to human life and an even worse fate for those that survived the explosion as they were exposed to the nuclear and suffered a most painful death, the ones that set out that day for school, to never come home…it was heart wrenching to see and learn.

We saw a step with a shadow on it from the blast. The shadow of a human being…frozen in place, breath taking the power we are capable off! It’s made clear why Japan is so clear that World Peace is a must, I mean it went through such an experience that was life changing, more so…it changed Human history forever.

A replica of the ”Little Boy” the bomb that was dropped on the city and it’s hard to look at this thing when you realise that bombs we have today could do so much more damage than this one now….very scary stuff because this bomb changed the world, this weapon took the human race down a new path.

So many stories of families looking for lost ones amongst the rubble, people suffering injuries from shards of glass, exposure to nuclear was unheard off and learning of what it could do was horrifying…it’s easy to not think about so much because we haven’t experienced anything on this scale in modern times and when I say that….when else has an ENTIRE city been pretty much wiped out by a Nuclear bomb in the middle of a war? I know we’ve had 9/11, London bombings, Chernobyl, Fukushima and many other terrorist attacks but this event is on a different scale, entirely.

You learn that thousands of families were torn apart, wiped out completely in many cases, lives cut short and survivors left with physical and mental scars! I can only imagine what this city was like mere seconds before that bomb hit at 8:15 am…that sudden flash of light that must of appeared like a big fireball in the sky that engulfed everything and swallowed it whole! All of this to bring a country to it’s knees and surrender which it eventually did but not until Nagasaki was bombed as well days later on the 9th of August.

We left this place feeling bad…bad that a place like this needs to exist in the first place, that we need to create world peace when we have countries with Nuclear Bombs at the ready…we have the power to end this planet….that’s a reality and it’s terrifying…utterly terrifying!

Just imagine being a citizen of Hiroshima when this happened…a descendant of one even…is it possible to forgive such an act? Would you be able to let go years later and move on? I don’t think I ever could to be honest…the pain would be too much, knowing that tens of thousands of human beings were wiped out instantly and many more from the exposure to the Nuclear Radiation…the burning of flesh and so many other things that impacted the body to kill from within. Such devastation that we can inflict anywhere in the world with the drop of a bomb

Yeah, we went to KFC… bit random after what we had seen but for some reason, we needed a distraction so afterwards we went and got some food…we were a little quiet for a bit but we perked up soon afterwards. We had a big history lesson today and we hoped that someday, the world would be rid of such powerful weapons, that we could relax and feel that we didn’t need them anymore.

We spent most of our day at the Memorial Park and wandered about shops afterwards as we had to go back a bit early to get some sleep before our long trip back home…early flight and all but our last day was from far being a boring one…it was an eye opener and if you ever go to Japan, I implore you to visit the museum in Hiroshima, see the whole city and learn what happened here…it’s far more of an impact being here than watching a video on TV or the Internet!

We had no idea that one place would take up so much of our time but we’re glad it did, a place that has such an impact on your heart and soul is definitely worth a trip to if you ask me! I’ll never forget Hiroshima and the lesson that it taught me…Peace is an important thing and we must do all we can to prevent a horrible event such as this from happening ever again!