It’s been a few months since we visited Japan to experience the winter festivals, but I thought I’d share a few of our photos from our time on Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island. We spent a week in the main city of Sapporo, where the annual festival attracts around 2 million people. We then headed north to the drift ice on the Sea of Okhotsk, visiting more festivals along the way.

What struck us, apart from the bitter cold, was the way in which the festivals involved a lot more than merely staring at ice and snow sculptures, however impressive they were. At each site there was something to do that inevitably had you covered in snow, whether it was throwing yourself down a giant slide or getting towed by a snowmobile in an inflatable raft.

A winter trip to see the Japanese winter festivals had long been on my wish list and the experience didn’t disappoint. A word of advice to anyone heading out: pack plenty of layers and bring the best gloves you can lay your hands on. The temperatures can be brutal and there’s no point travelling all that way only to want to hide away in the warm comfort of your hotel.

Anyway, the photos:

Sapporo Snow Festival. A snow replica of the Mausoleum of Itmad-Ud-Daulah in Agra. Made of 2,250 tonnes of snow (around 450 5-tonne trucks) and using 3,800 volunteers

Transformers-themed light snow at the Asahikawa Winter Festival

Back to Sapporo and a snow version of the Sultan Abdul Samad Building in Kuala Lumpur

Guess who sponsored this ice sculpture. Corporate sponsors featured heavily in the Sapporo Snow Festival.

Snow train at the Otaru Snow Light Path Festival

Ice penguins in Asahikawa – it was minus 15C as we wandered around the festival site

Sapporo and the ice sculptures in Susukino, the city’s entertainment district

Otaru Snow Light Path Festival. Snow, light and a path.

Otaru and the frozen canal along which much of the action takes place

Food for sale in Otaru along the festival route

Watching the snow boarders jumping at the Sapporo Snow Festival

Sapporo Snow Festival and something for all ages

Sapporo Snow Festival and that’s me hurtling down the big snow slide (you can’t see my big grin on this one)

We were in Japan to research a set of commissioned articles (published in Spring 2014 issue of Journeys Magazine, National Geographic Traveller blog, Country by Country and TRVL iPad app). Many thanks to Inside Japan Tours for their valuable help along the way.

Japanese Winter Festivals – in photos is a post from: 501 Places

Steller’s sea eagle looking mean

Japan has several claims to fame as a travel destination, but relatively few people think of the country as a wildlife destination. Fewer still choose to brave the bone-chilling temperatures on the northern island of Hokkaido to see the birdlife which is drawn to this harsh winter climate.

Yet there we were, certainly not self-confessed birdwatchers, standing in temperatures below -10C and gazing at a succession of flying giants. Perhaps I’d be stretching the truth to say we were so impressed by the sight of these birds that we forgot about the chill. That said, when I think back to watching the sea eagles on the drift ice of the Sea of Okhotsk, my over-riding memory is of the majestic birds in flight and not of the many layers I’d piled on to see them.

So, here’s a gallery of Japanese winter birds from our trip to Hokkaido in February. The Steller’s Sea Eagles (the black and white birds with yellow beaks) and the white-tailed eagles (the eagle-shaped birds with white tails) were seen on an ice-breaker trip from Rausu on the Shiretoko Peninsula in the far north. We saw the cranes on the Tsurui marshes near Kushiro, and it was here that we also spotted the Ural owl.

All photos are by Sameena Jarosz.

White-tailed eagle

Cranes in flight

Ural Owl

Steller’s sea eagles interrogating a raven

Steller’s sea eagle coming in to land

Ice breakers on the drift ice in the Sea of Okhotsk

Two cranes on the Tsurui marshes

Cranes at Kushiro

Cranes at sunrise

Cranes singing

We were not alone

We were in Japan to research a set of commissioned articles (published in Spring 2014 issue of Journeys Magazine and TRVL iPad app). Many thanks to Inside Japan Tours for their valuable help along the way.

Sea eagles, Owls and Cranes – Japanese winter birds is a post from: 501 Places

Everyone loves monkeys. Actually no, that’s not strictly true. While many people coo at the sight of seeing our distant cousins pulling funny faces, most of us consider them a pest when they get up to their usual mischief and try to separate us from our snacks and loose camera gear.

The macaques that come to bathe in the hot springs at Jigokudani (known to one and all as the Japanese snow monkeys) are uncharacteristically well-behaved. It’s almost as if their Japanese environment has rubbed off on them. We spent an hour by the hot pool observing these curious creatures interact and there wasn’t a single incidence of theft. In fact on several occasions the younger monkeys leapt within inches of their human visitors, generally acting as if we weren’t there as they brushed our legs before scuttling up the hillside.

Leaving Sam to snap the pictures that I’ve shared here, I was free to observe as youngsters squabbled noisily to the visible disapproval of their elders, parents protected their babies from the cold and children played in the snow without a care; all in all the typical kind of behaviour you’d expect when watching any of our relatives go about their everyday life.

Snow monkeys are big business for this mountain valley near the Olympic city of Nagano. On our train from Nagano to the end of the line at Yudanaka Onsen (the train was called the Snow Monkey Express) most passengers were Japanese tourists, heading up to the mountain villages with the main aim of seeing the snow monkeys. Snow monkey cuddly toys are big sellers.

Yet for all the fuss, there were only around 20 other people who made it through the blizzard that greeted us and trekked up the mountain pool to watch the monkeys as they soaked in the hot water.

Disclosure: We were in Japan to research a set of commissioned articles (links to follow in due course). Many thanks to Inside Japan Tours, the Japan National Tourism Organization and Virgin Atlantic for their valuable help along the way.

A visit to the Japanese snow monkeys is a post from: 501 Places

I’m never at my best first thing in the morning.

We’d woken early at our temple lodgings in the Zenkoji temple complex in Nagano. The accommodation in the two-storey wooden house had been basic but the hospitality typically warm. Fearful that the winter nights in such an old place would be uncomfortably cold I’d packed the warmest nightwear I could gather, only to find that as in the modern hotels in which we’d stayed elsewhere in Japan, cold weather outside means extreme heat inside. On this night however, the night-time toilet run involved a journey along the wooden corridor, down the steep rickety staircase and through a communal washing area, all of which were closer to the temperatures in the snow-covered street outside.

We shuffled in the morning gloom to the nearby temple for the 7am morning prayers, passing two monks carrying umbrellas along the way. Snow had been falling steadily for the last two days and was now deep and crisp underfoot. Nagano is an unusual Japanese city in that it developed around the temple, rather than around a harbour or a fort. Zenkoji temple dates back to the 7th century and is home to the oldest statue of Buddha in Japan, the Zenkoji Golden Triad. This sacred image is hidden from public view and its replica is only brought out for show once every seven years in a grand ceremony (the next occasion will be in 2015).

Pilgrims have come here for centuries to pray and also to seek eternal good fortune. An underground passage runs below the main sanctuary of Zenkoji Hondo, the magnificent 18th century wooden main hall. In pitch darkness visitors to the temple fumble their way through a corridor in search of the Key to Paradise. Those who find and touch this heavy metal object are guaranteed eternal salvation.

Having completed the eternal salvation task successfully the day before we now sat on the floor mats in front of the sanctuary and settled into a lull as the monks began the melodic rhythmic chants that formed the acoustic backdrop to the morning ceremony. The High Priest arrived and began his prayers at the back of the sanctuary, making first three anti-clockwise circles with his right hand, then three clockwise circles, repeating this continuously as he opened the large doors to the inner sanctuary.

The ceremony continued for two hours but we had breakfast to eat and a train to catch so slipped away from the hypnotic chants quietly, lacing up our boots before leaving through the main entrance. Here a man waved to us, making a praying gesture and furtively pointing ahead. Unable to make out his intentions I smiled and made a prayer gesture back to him. He continued to signal to us and I, not knowing what he wanted, started to walk down the steps towards my waiting breakfast. Sam had twigged by then and stopped, calling me back in time before I walked headlong into a serious breach of etiquette. The High Priestess or abbess of the temple complex was approaching and everyone around had dropped to their knees to receive a blessing as she passed us. Just in time we assumed the correct position to receive the High Priestess’s blessings, a prayer and a holy hand stopping briefly over our heads.

Embarrassment saved and offence averted, we ate a hasty breakfast before making our way to the station, only to find that the overnight snow had stopped the Nagano bullet train for the first time in 17 years. It seems that guaranteed salvation and sacred blessings can’t address every situation.

Disclosure: We were in Japan to research a series of commissions (links to follow in due course). Many thanks to Inside Japan Tours, the Japan National Tourism Organization and Virgin Atlantic for their valuable help along the way.

Zenkoji Temple in Nagano: The High Priestess and the Bumbling Idiot is a post from: 501 Places

For a long time I had the same reaction as many folks when asked to name a favourite country from my travels: “How can I pick a favourite? It’s impossible; they’re all different and each has its own merits.” When we came back from a month in Japan in 2011, I changed my tune and started to name Japan at the top of my list. Having just spent another 17 days there I can honestly say that Japan remains securely in that pole position.

Why? What makes Japan so special? Why would I recommend others to make the long, exhausting flight to experience it for themselves?

First of all, it’s an incredibly easy country to visit as a tourist. The rail system is probably the world’s best and signs and announcements are typically made in English as well as Japanese. The Japan Rail pass allows you to board most of the bullet trains, meaning you can travel a long way in a few hours without messing around with airports. I’ve found planning an itinerary around Japan is as easy as arranging a road trip in North America, but without the hassle of having to drive all day.

The people of course are an essential part of any travel experience and in Japan you find yourself returning countless smiles, even when (as is often the case) you don’t have a clue what’s going on. Ask someone for directions to a guesthouse and they’ll most likely drop what they’re doing and take you to your destination, delivering a formal handover to your new hosts before departing with a bow. We’ve spent seven weeks in the country and haven’t tired of this unswerving courtesy; in fact it just makes coming home all the more of a shock to the system.

Part of visiting any country is learning about its history and in Japan you can approach this from many different positions. If you like a good castle, there is one in almost every town. Most were built in the 15th and 16th centuries as strongholds of the feudal lords. These wooden creations were not designed with fire resistance in mind and few originals remain, but the reconstructions are still impressive and particularly pretty when lit up at night.

If you like your history more modern then you’ll be spoilt for choice. Japan shut itself off from the world for 300 years and in the port city of Hakodate, inexplicably off the main tourist circuit, you can see a fascinating collection of consulates and churches set up in the boom years of the late 19th century when Japan suddenly opened its doors to foreign trade.

The stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki need no introduction and both cities are worthy of exploration beyond the museums that document their atomic tragedies. But dig around a little and it really gets interesting when you find the stories that don’t fit into the official Japanese narrative of 20th century history. One of the best museums I’ve visited is the Kyoto Museum for World Peace, the only place I’ve seen in Japan that attempts to address its wartime role with anything approaching candour. And in several Hokkaido museums you can learn about the Ainu, the only indigenous group in Japan. There is a notable silence about the oppression that the Ainu people suffered at the hands of the Japanese until quite recent years, although a bit of reading before you visit can offer some light on that missing part of the story.

Then there’s the wildlife. Japan does urban sprawl and neon lights better than anyone, but in such a densely-populated country it’s reassuring to find so much open space and wildlife, with a great variety birds to see and some of the world’s best whale-watching. Japan continues to slaughter whales when most of the world has accepted this is neither big nor clever, so it’s good to know that some folks in the country are actually making a living from whales without leaving a trail of blood in their wake.

Which moves me neatly onto the food. Nowhere else would I eat a raw prawn’s head or a sea urchin, but here in the hands of a personable sushi chef we ate what we were given and even enjoyed it. Japan is the only place where we’ve eaten pretty much what we wanted and still come home a pound or two lighter, such is the lack of fat in the typical Japanese diet. That said, seaweed, eel and rice gruel is not my idea of a delicious breakfast and I wouldn’t miss a Japanese breakfast if I didn’t see another one till the day I die.

With menus largely undecipherable and few English speakers in restaurants, we settled for a regular round of ‘Japanese roulette’ and took pot luck at ordering, often but not always with the help of plastic models of dishes that vaguely resembled what we received. We usually ate well, and typically spent no more than £15 for the two of us – even our blow-out sushi meal cost £23 each, with a seat by the counter watching the sushi master at work and chatting to him throughout the meal; a similar experience in London would cost at least three times the price.

The dining difficulties do sum up the wider Japan experience neatly. For much of the time we never really knew what was going on around us and more than once our ignorance created a trail of confused chaos. Yet with a round of smiles and polite laughter we’ve somehow muddled through and had a memorable time in a country where unfamiliarity is everywhere.

Japan and an ongoing affection is a post from: 501 Places

We’re just back from a couple of very enjoyable weeks in Japan and I’ll post several stories from our trip on here in the coming weeks. For now I thought I’d quickly share some of the funny Japanese signs and strange English translations we encountered on our way around the country.

I should stress that the fact that signs are in English at all is a great help, especially in a country with so few English speakers and still a largely domestic tourist market. And the translations, funny as they are, do ensure that the signs get more attention than they would otherwise receive. Perhaps it’s all part of a very clever plan…

Vigorously a good sign

Cow cross a street – this street in particular

Nobody likes a crowed room

Google Translate at its finest?

I decided I probably shouldn’t have been there

No entry for big-footed people – again, I decided I shouldn’t have been there

No gender stereotyping here – none at all

Logic you can’t argue with

Danger – do not hold giant mobile phones near the railway tracks.

The whole of northern Japan was a Play with Snow area

Given the size of the icicles, the exclamation marks are fully justified

Collection of Japanese signs is a post from: 501 Places

Five-storied red pagodas, carefully manicured gardens, geisha girls and futuristic skylines: just a few of the most popular images of Japan. During our month travelling around the country we saw all of the above. Yet Japan is a country we hear relatively little about and in the course of our travels we stumbled across plenty of surprises. Here are just a small selection:

This red London bus was parked permanently in a side street in Matsuyama and has been transformed into a cafe

Pasteis de nata: this oh-so delicious treat is the signature dessert of Portugal. Imagine my surprise to find them on sale in a covered market in Kyoto

Oura Church, Nagasaki. Japanese Christians endured three centuries of persecution. Nagasaki, the cradle of Christianity in Japan, is today home to dozens of churches

Hot bubbling mud in the hells of Beppu. We saw similar in Rotorua and in Yellowstone but hadn't heard of Japan's equivalent until we stumbled across them on the island of Kyushu

Looking through bridge floor for giant whirlpools. The Naruto Straits are home to some of the world's largest whirlpools. Excited by this fact we travelled a long way to see them, to no avail. Here we are looking in hope for something to happen

Russian Orthodox Church in Hakodate. Not something I expected to find. The whole city of Hakodate has the feel of a northern frontier town with a strong Russian influence

Polish memorial in Peace Park, Nagasaki. Being of Polish origin I look out for signs of Polishness wherever I am. I didn't expect to find a memorial donated in the 1980s by communist Poland

Rainy day in Kyoto by Golden Pavilion. If you're travelling to Japan for the first time you'll probably have a picture in your mind of how it will look. If you're going in September, you mind want to add a little rain to that image

Funny Japanese signs. Of course there were plenty of examples of twisted English. But I was more impressed by the ones that showed off the Japanese sense of humour

Flowers in the city - this Tokyo garden was just one example of the way that even the most congested and densely populated cities had their greenery and open spaces

Statue of Liberty, Tokyo. We actually found two Lady Liberties in Japan; this one was the most impressive

Kyu Iwasaki-tei Teien House and Garden, Tokyo. A traditional English Victorian house built for a member of the Mitsubishi clan. Wandering around the house I could have easily been in a National Trust property back in England

12 things you wouldn’t expect to find in Japan is a post from: 501 Places

Deer grazing freely on MIyajima

Before we came to Japan I received suggestions from several people about the places we shouldn’t miss. The advice to visit Miyajima was unanimous. Reading a little further into this I discovered that Miyajima is also listed as one Japan’s three most scenic spots. I felt compelled to find out for myself what the fuss was about.

The 'Floating' Tori, Miyajima

Miyajima is a small island in the Hiroshima prefecture, only a few minutes by ferry from the mainland and less than an hour’s journey from the city of Hiroshima. It is one of Japan’s most popular tourist destinations, as anyone who has had to battle their way through the ferry terminal to reach the island will testify.

Looking down from the hiking trail on Mount Misen

The star attraction on Miyajima is the 10 metre high Torii gate standing out in the sea and appearing to float on the water at high tide. In fact, the majority of visitors head straight from the boat along the short road lined with tourist shops and make their way to the Itsukushima shrine.

At the first clear sight of the gate the done thing is to pose at what must surely be one of the most popular photo spots in the world. Large group tours, company outings, families, couples, friends: within a few minutes we saw all of these standing to attention with the red torii as the backdrop to their souvenir snap.

Five storied pagoda, Miyajima

Once you’ve seen enough of the torii gate there are plenty of nearby places to spend your precious yen. Gift shops, food stalls and chocolate sellers make the most of the daily flow of people and their well-trodden path. Yet for those looking to lose the crowds there is a tempting option that is constantly staring you in the face: the looming 535m peak of Mount Misen that dominates this tiny island.

Hiking trail on Mount Misen - deserted in the heat of the midday sun

No-one climbs Mount Misen in the midday heat, as we soon discovered once we left the shoreline and started climbing the well-marked track. With temperatures at around 35C and very little shade it is not for anyone with a shred of sanity.

We did pass a couple of folks heading down the hill (and at one point were even overtaken by four guys running up with their rucksacks) but for the most part we were alone for the slow and exhausting 90 minute climb.

Imagine then, arriving at the top and finding this monstrosity:

Unexpected eyesore at the top of Mount Misen

Whoever built this in such a beautiful location should be ceremoniously thrown from the summit (or made to walk up in the midday sun without water). Our instinct to indulge in architectural critique was soon cast aside when we found that the eyesore did in fact contain a vending machine and even a cafe selling ice cream. The views from the top across the Inland Sea were, needless to say, magnificent.

Inside the Daishoin Temple, Miyajima

Another highlight of a visit to Miyajima is a look inside the Daishoin Temple. Hundreds of statues adorn the walkways around the site while there are several beautiful shrines within the site that remain in regular use.

We were very fortunate to stumble upon a couple of violinists playing in one of the temples. They were rehearsing for a later concert and were happy enough to have a couple of tourists sit quietly at the back of the room and admire their music. I couldn’t have been happier, resting our weary legs after our day of hiking and enjoying the haunting sounds of the violin in a lovely old Buddhist temple with the evening light fading rapidly outside.

Tori at night, Miyajima

The vast majority of visitors to Miyajima return to the mainland before sunset. The island empties quickly, shops and restaurants close and very soon only a few couples can be seen sitting on the sea wall or strolling hand in hand through the quiet streets. Many paths are candlelit and with the pleasant evening temperatures this is perhaps the best time to enjoy the tranquility of Miyajima.

Candlelit path, Miyajima

Staying on Miyajima

We stayed in a traditional ryokan – Yamaichi Bekkan – on the solid recommendation of James from Inside Japan (who helpfully provided me with several other good tips for our journey). The rooms were comfortable and clean, while the owner Shinko-san is one of the most delightful hosts you are likely to meet on your travels.

A stay in a ryokan can blow a hole in a travel budget, but it’s worth splurging on at least once on a trip to Japan. We paid 13,000 yen (a little over £100) for a room for two at Yamaichi Bekkan which is probably one of the cheaper prices you’ll find to stay on what is generally an expensive island. Here more than anywhere else we felt we were getting good value for money in our ryokan experience.

Miyajima is certainly worthy of the hype. There is plenty to enjoy on the island in the daytime, but if time allows an overnight stay you can experience a very different, far more peaceful side to Miyajima.

Miyajima – Japan’s Holy Island is a post from: 501 Places

'Fat Man', a model of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki

Most of us would never have heard of Nagasaki had it not been for a few rogue clouds. On the morning of August 9th 1945 an American B-29 bomber carrying a nuclear bomb with the code name “Fat Man” was circling over the city of Kokura, its intended target. A late covering of cloud had obscured the city from the bomber crew and was preventing them from releasing their lethal cargo.

Running short of fuel they switched to their secondary target, the industrial port city of Nagasaki. Even Nagasaki may have been spared, with more clouds covering the city and forcing the pilots to consider dropping their bomb at sea. But fortunately for the crew (and tragically for the city’s inhabitants) a last-minute break in cloud cover gave the crew the opportunity they needed.

At 11.02 the second American atomic bomb to be dropped on a Japanese city detonated over the northern Nagasaki suburb of Urakami. That the hypocentre was around 3km north of the intended point probably saved many lives although 75,000 were killed instantly or as a direct result of the bomb. The city lies at the bottom of a valley and many of Nagasaki’s buildings were shielded from the blast thanks to the city’s topography.

A visit to the Atomic Bomb Museum in Nagasaki provides a powerful insight into the events of 1945. Visitors are shown ruins from Urakami Cathedral which stood only a short distance from the hypocentre and where mass was taking place at the moment the bomb fell. All were killed and the building was completely destroyed, but a few poignant personal objects were later recovered.

Rosaries and crucifixes recovered from Urakami Cathedral

Part of the walls of Urakami Cathedral

The museum then focuses on the lives of those affected by the bomb. It recalls stories of the people who survived and the hellish aftermath that the city became in the subsequent days. The accounts are difficult to absorb, yet from many of the stories a spirit of hope and resilience shines through, along with constant pleas for future world peace. The exhibits of the final hall looks at the global nuclear arms race, the effects of nuclear testing in the Pacific and questions the role of a nuclear deterrent as a force for world peace in the future.

Outside of the museum, the hypocentre is clearly marked with a black stone memorial in a small enclosed park, while the newly built Urakami Cathedral is worth a visit. A few original artifacts are kept outside the modern building, while to the side a large section of the church that fell onto a grass bank in the atomic destruction has been left untouched.

The stone marking the hypocentre of the Nagasaki atomic bomb

Urakami Cathedral

Ruins of the old cathedral with the new building above

The Nagasaki Peace Park is dominated by a giant statue created by sculptor Seibou Kitamura. Around the park are various memorials given to the city as an gift of friendship, mainly by the ex-communist states of Eastern Europe.

The Peace Memorial by Seibou Kitamura

It is only natural to compare a visit to Nagasaki with one to Hiroshima, especially having visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial only two days earlier. The area around the Hiroshima Peace Park is wide and flat giving a sense of space and openness. The Nagasaki sites on the other hand are dotted around the slopes of Urakami and are very much within a residential area. Walk from the museum to the Peace Park or to the cathedral and you’ll be passing homes, offices and busy streets. Everything appears, on the surface at least, reassuringly normal. While the Hiroshima site has developed buildings and an infrastructure to cater for the huge crowds that visit, Nagasaki feels a lot more intimate and an integral part of the surrounding modern city.

I liked Nagasaki as a city very much. Beyond the atomic bomb monuments it is a very pleasant port city with a trendy harbour area, several grand old buildings and plenty of evidence of its strong multi-faith roots (the city had been the centre of Japanese Christianity for many hundreds of years and had withstood a lengthy period of persecution).

Nagasaki Harbour

Within three days we had been to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two places in the world where humans have used their scientific knowledge to unleash an instrument of the most devastating power on their fellow men. As our train pulled out of Nagasaki station I’m sure I wasn’t the first to reflect on the hope that I never have the opportunity to visit another place that has suffered the fate shared by these two Japanese cities.

Nagasaki and the Atomic Bomb Museum is a post from: 501 Places

8.15am on August 6th, 1945 - the moment time stopped in Hiroshima

Growing up in the latter years of the Cold War the subjects of nuclear wars, mushroom clouds and Armageddon were never far away. We had Reagan and Thatcher talking tough to the revolving procession of aged Soviet leaders while the movies of the day depicted scenes of nuclear wars that caused genuine panic in many quarters when they were released.

All these nightmare scenarios would have been based on pure hypothesis and speculation had it not been for two very real atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The names of these two faraway cities stayed in my mind since childhood. I found it hard to believe that places that had suffered such absolute devastation could have risen from the rubble to become thriving major cities once again. Once we had decided to visit Japan these were two cities I had to visit.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

The first stop for visitors to Hiroshima is usually the Peace Memorial Museum. The museum is very popular with Japanese school groups and as a natural consequence is not a place for peaceful reflection. That said, once you start reading about the horrors that are described so vividly and personally the background noise soon becomes forgotten.

Entrance is a nominal 50 yen with a 250 yen audio guide option available when you buy your entrance ticket. Do take the audio guide; it provides plenty of additional information, even if the very intimate accounts of survivors make what is already a difficult experience even tougher.

The museum occupies several large rooms and takes a couple of hours to explore at a steady pace. The main hall on the ground floor tells the story of the wider Japanese war from 1931 to 1945. It features large scale models of the city of Hiroshima before and immediately after the bomb was dropped on August 6th 1945. One section describes the American development of the bomb and tells the story from the viewpoint of the men aboard the Enola Gay, the plane that released its murderous cargo over the city.

Model of Hiroshima in 1945 before the bombing

Hiroshima in 1945 in the aftermath of the bombing

Workers rebuild the tram lines immediately - transport was restored within 3 days of the bombing

The upper floor looks objectively at the global nuclear arms race before directing visitors to what is surely the hardest part of the whole museum to witness: the personal accounts of the parents of children or of the children themselves who were victims, either killed as a result of the immediate fireball and blast or later by radiation. Artifacts such as charred lunch boxes and burned clothing hammer home the completely indiscriminate nature of weapons of mass destruction.

Children's toys are accompanied by some of the most tragic testimonies

Each of these pieces of clothing reveals another heart-breaking story

Hibakusha – the atomic bomb survivors

Of particular interest is the information about hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bombings. They were offered government medical support although many have suffered discrimination in Japanese society in the subsequent years, with some people fearing that they may be contagious or carry some sort of misfortune with them. Even the children of hibakusha have suffered this prejudice, finding it more difficult than others to get work.

While Japanese victims could access state support for their medical needs, the same help was not available for the many thousands of Koreans who were conscripted as forced labourers and who were affected by the bomb. Their fight has been long and painful and many still wait for recognition of the suffering they endured.

The museum does try to address the issue of the Korean conscripts but I found the mentions of empathy with the Koreans felt somewhat forced and seemed to be more of a nod to political correctness. For a far more powerful and soul-searching account of the treatment of foreigners during the war I would recommend a visit to the excellent Museum of World Peace in Kyoto.

Outside the Museum

The Peace Memorial Park outside the museum is dotted with statues and sculptures presented as gifts from world leaders to the city of Hiroshima. It provides a leafy area away from the crowds to contemplate the sounds and images of the museum and remember the horrors inflicted on this city.

Peace Memorial Park

The actual hypocentre, the spot exactly below where the bomb detonated at 8.15 that morning, is marked by an easily missed memorial on an inconspicuous back street close to the park.

The hypocentre - the bomb exploded exactly over this spot

A-Bomb Dome

Perhaps the most recognisable symbol of Hiroshima is the A-bomb dome, previously housing the Hiroshima Prefecture Industrial Promotion Hall. It is barely 100 metres from the hypocentre of the atomic blast yet it remained one of the few buildings still standing, albeit badly damaged.

A-Bomb Dome

The site is illuminated at night and the nearby riverbank a popular area for families and groups of friends to bring their barbecues along with saki and music.

A-bomb dome in Hiroshima at night

We sat on the wall across from the A-bomb dome and watched and listened as a group of twentysomethings partied away under the exact spot where, a little over 66 years before, the first nuclear bomb in history had been deliberately used to wipe out an entire city. As I watched them enjoy the balmy summer evening, seemingly without a care in the world, I was reminded of the men who rebuilt the tracks and had the trams running 72 hours after the bomb exploded. Whatever we might sometimes think, humans really are a resilient species.

Hiroshima and the Peace Memorial Museum is a post from: 501 Places