Thursday, June 27, 2013

Day 14, Hiroshima peace park, Miyajima, Daishoin

Matteen's report
This morning we went to the Hiroshima peace park. Here you can see the remains of an old community building that was struck by the atomic bomb. We were also able to ring the bell of eternal peace and see the statue of Sadako, which is a memorial to the kids who were killed by the bomb. After the park we went to a Hiroshima memorial museum which was really depressing; yet well done. There were some interesting artifacts and some very frightening replicas. 

Once we finished at the museum we walked to a Japanese restaurant for a group lunch. The crew had various different dishes and desserts, all of which were delicious. We are now heading to the place to get onto the ferry and go out to the island of Miyajima.

At Miyajima we visited a small shrine called Itsutsushima-injya which was right on the water front. After this we walked up hill to Daisho-in temple. Here there were many different things to do, we went into a pitch black basement room and had to find our way out, we went on the roof of one of the prayer buildings and we also walked through a room full of statues and rolled hundreds of huge beads for luck. 


Once we had finished up at the temple we were given a little bit of free time. Alex and Sam took a large set of stairs and Alex made it up to a viewing platform to see the view from there. The rest of us took our shoes and waded through the huge shrine gate that was in the middle of the ocean which was really quite cool. 

Now we're heading into Hiroshima to get some dinner at an Okonomiyaki restaurant, and then we'll hopefully have a little more free time before heading back to our hostel.

No comments:

Post a Comment