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Hiroshima City & Miyajima

Hiroshima Area

Tony Clemens
2005-08-31 22:21:32

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With Japan's excellent rail system I would not bother to fly domestic within Japan for many destinations. For example the trip from Kyoto to Hiroshima took about four hours. Its probably an hour flight but combine getting to the airport 2 hours before the flight with the airports been on the outskirts of the city and with train stations usually downtown, its much faster, cheaper and more convenient to take the train. The bullet train reaches speeds of 300 kph. Japan's main island Honshu is covered by a network of high speed train lines that connect Tokyo with most of the island's major cities and Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu. The Japan rail pass is one of the few travel bargains in the country.

Hiroshima City

Hiroshima is a port city that is more famous for what was done to it as oppose to what it did. On August 6, 1945 an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima which destroyed almost every building within 2 kilometres of the epicentre and killed up to 140,000 which included POWs and Korean labourers.

A few buildings survived including the Industrial Hall which was near the epicentre. A few other buildings survived including a hospital and city hall which were refurbished and used until new structures were builted. The Industrial Hall which was renamed the Genbaku-Domu-mae or Atomic Dome was going to be torn down in the 1960's but some far-sighted citizens lobbied to maintain the building as a monument to the destructive forces of nuclear weapons.

The Genbaku-Domu-mae is part of the Peace Memorial Park which includes many touching monuments and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The museum has to be the greatest bargain in Japan. Most museums and treasure halls in Japan charge about ¥500 for admission give or take 100¥. Admission to the Peace Museum is ¥50. Its a very good museum which does not shy away from Japanese military history, Hiroshima's ...