The original itinerary for this cruise included both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only two cities to ever experience the horror of a nuclear bomb. Nagasaki was dropped from the itinerary but Hiroshima remained and we docked there Sunday morning. It was a beautiful morning – bright and sunny – and I couldn’t help but think of the bright and sunny morning of August 6, 1945, when 90,000 people were killed by a single bomb.
That bomb leveled nearly every building within a mile of Ground Zero. But one building remained standing – gutted but not destroyed. That building is now the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, shown above.
We traveled to the memorial via bus shuttle and tram. After viewing the memorial and the nearby river we wandered east into downtown Hiroshima and stumbled upon the Hondori Central Shopping District, a covered pedestrian mall that runs for at least 4 city blocks. It was Sunday but it was busy. We found some interesting shops, including the Sunmall, a 5-story vertical shopping locus containing some very interesting shops. The top floor is almost entirely second-hand clothing. Marlene loved it. She was amazed at the used wedding gowns, including some beautiful gowns for under $100. There was also a children’s play area which is designated “English only,” meaning that only English is spoken on the premises. An English-only playground in Japan? Can you think of any Japanese-only playgrounds in America?
I also saw a very cool TT-scale model train layout that included a model of the Peace Memorial.
As we were heading back to the tram, we saw a group of people in the lobby of a building. At first I thought it was a sales presentation, but we listened in for a bit and no kitchen appliances were being demonstrated. Marlene asked and it turns out that it was a talk by a former professional baseball player, Mitsuo Tatsukawa, a 7-time All Star in the Japanese Nippon League.
When we got back to where the bus shuttle was to pick us up to take us back to the ship we found a long line. We decided to walk the 1.5 miles. Took 30 minutes but it was a pleasant walk.
Once back onboard I did my monthly backup of the laptop’s hard disk and sent a note to my sister, reminding her that it would have been our mother’s 100th birthday, had she been alive. A somber memory on top of the A-bomb thoughts. A nice day for quiet reflection.
Dinner was superb: chateaubriand and cappuccino cake for dessert. Very nice!
The show was the Luminosa Rockband – the same band we have danced to nearly every day, but in a theater setting. They put on a wonderful show. This is a really good band. Especially considering that they have been together just a few months. The solo by Rose, the female vocalist, brought tears to Marlene’s eyes.
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