We arrived in Hiroshima on Friday after our first shinkansen (Japanese bullet train) trip, from Kyoto. It was a pleasant two hour ride; smooth and fast in a clean, comfortable carriage. Ours was a “silence” car, meaning that passengers were not supposed to speak, and certainly not use mobile phones, so as to provide a restful journey for all on board. The train staff were immaculately attired in snappy uniforms and bowed respectfully to all passengers. There wasn’t a speck of litter or scuff mark in the train or on the platforms, and signage inside was clear, and duplicated in Braille (not that we needed the latter although at times it was a case of the blind leading the blind). We disembarked mightily impressed by the bullet train system, and the demonstration that public transport can be a refined, quality experience without trash, grime, graffiti or delay.
In Hiroshima we discovered that coincidentally the city was this weekend hosting the annual Nobel Peace Laureate Summit, the first time this annual Summit was being held outside Europe. So we decided to reschedule our time in Hiroshima and stay for the closing ceremony on Sunday. In the meantime we visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Peace Park just across the road from our hotel. The museum provides a comprehensive, fairly balanced, and of course inevitably gut-wrenching account of the events leading up to, and the aftermath of the bombing on the morning of 6 August 1945. We strolled around the Park to look at the various other memorials and gave the Peace Bell a good gong as we walked past.
We returned to the Park on Sunday morning for the Peace Summit closing ceremony, hoping to see and hear from some of the Laureates expected to attend, like Lech Walesa, FW De Klerk, Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dalai Lama. It proved to be a “star-studded” cast and we heard from FW De Klerk and the Dalai, amongst others. The speeches were a mix of idealism, inspiration and a call to action. It’s a great pity that those who most need to heed what was said are those least likely to.
While in Hiroshima we also took a ferry to the nearby island of Miyajima, a popular destination with Japanese travellers. It was a pleasant enough place with plenty of Autumn colour about, and wild deer from the nearby forests mingling with the large crowd, seeking, and snatching, morsels to eat.
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