Hiroshima

Hiroshima: What Remains When a City Rebuilds Itself

The Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall was roughly 150 metres from the hypocentre when the bomb detonated on 6 August 1945. Because the blast came from above rather than from the side, the building’s dome and outer walls survived. Everything within a two-kilometre radius was destroyed. The Hall now stands as the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, preserved in its post-blast condition by deliberate choice and maintained by a city that has turned the act of remembering into a form of foreign policy. Hiroshima has hosted more official peace-related events than almost any other city on earth, and yet the place is frequently surprising to visitors who expect only solemnity.

The Peace Memorial Park and Museum

The park occupies the delta island at the confluence of the Ota River’s distributaries, directly under the bomb’s hypocentre. The A-Bomb Dome is at its northern tip. The Peace Memorial Museum, at the southern end, is the centrepiece and should not be rushed.

Adult admission to the museum is ¥200, reduced to ¥100 for high school students and free for junior high and younger. Audio guides are available for an additional ¥400. Hours vary by month: March through November the museum opens at 07:30 and closes between 18:00 and 20:00 (until 21:00 on 5 and 6 August); December through February closes at 18:00. Last admission is 30 minutes before closing. The museum shuts on 30 and 31 December and for a few days in mid-February. Pre-booking through the official site hpmmuseum.jp is strongly advised in spring, during Golden Week, and above all in late July and early August when queues without advance tickets can exceed 45 minutes.

The museum contains two buildings. The east building provides the historical context for the attack, with material on Hiroshima before 1945, the course of the Pacific War, and the decision to use nuclear weapons. One fact that most guides omit: Kyoto was removed from the American target list partly because US Secretary of War Henry Stimson had spent his honeymoon there and was attached to the city. Nagasaki replaced it. The west building holds survivor accounts, personal belongings recovered from the rubble, and physical evidence of what the bomb did to human bodies at varying distances from the hypocentre. Allocate at least two hours. The west building in particular is emotionally demanding and requires time that a rushed visit cannot provide.

The Peace Flame at the park’s centre has been burning since 1964. It is intended to burn until all nuclear weapons on earth have been eliminated, which has not yet happened.

The A-Bomb Dome

Most visitors photograph the dome from the riverside, which is fine. What is harder to communicate from photographs is the scale of what surrounds the ruins: a prosperous modern city of 1.2 million people, built essentially from nothing after 1945. The contrast between the preserved ruin and the rebuilt city is the core of what Hiroshima is trying to say.

A detail that the museum context clarifies: approximately 90 per cent of Hiroshima’s physicians and nurses were killed or injured in the blast. Seventy per cent of victims had combined injuries. The medical infrastructure to treat the survivors effectively ceased to exist at the moment it was most needed.

Miyajima Island

About 30 minutes by tram and ferry from central Hiroshima, Miyajima is an island where Itsukushima Shrine and its famous torii gate appear to float on the water at high tide. The gate is 16 metres tall and stands in the sea roughly 200 metres from the shore; timing a visit to coincide with high water is worthwhile, though the island is rewarding at any tide.

Ferries run from Miyajimaguchi pier. Two companies operate the route: JR and Matsudai, both charging ¥200 one-way (plus a ¥100 visitor tax). The crossing takes 10 minutes. JR ferries departing Miyajimaguchi between 09:10 and 16:10 take a detour to pass closest to the torii gate at no extra charge, which is the better option for first-time visitors. Japan Rail Pass holders travel free on the JR ferry.

The island also has Mount Misen, reachable by ropeway or on foot in roughly 90 minutes. The summit at 535 metres has views across the Seto Inland Sea and, on clear days, as far as Shikoku. The island’s deer, which have been semi-wild here for centuries, are now extremely habituated to humans and will investigate bags and pockets with more confidence than is ideal.

Miyajima sees enormous crowds in cherry blossom season (late March to early April) and during autumn leaf colour (mid-November). An early ferry, before 08:00, allows an hour of relative quiet around the shrine before the day-trip crowds arrive from Hiroshima.

Where to Eat

Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is a layered savoury pancake, cooked on a flat iron griddle and structurally distinct from the Osaka version: a thin crepe base is topped with shredded cabbage, bean sprouts, pork belly, tempura bits, and yakisoba noodles, all stacked and pressed together rather than mixed as batter. An egg is cracked on the griddle at the end. The debate over whose version is correct is ongoing and best left alone.

Okonomimura, known loosely as Okonomiyaki Village, is a three-floor food complex in central Hiroshima with nearly 20 restaurants, each occupying a small counter space. It is tourist-facing but genuinely good. A full okonomiyaki costs roughly ¥1,000 to ¥1,500. Nagataya, near the Peace Memorial Park, has a longer menu and is one of the few places offering vegan and vegetarian variants. Okonomi-matochan, in a converted house in a narrower alley off the main shopping arcade, adds oysters (Hiroshima produces around 60 per cent of Japan’s oyster harvest) to the standard recipe. Oysters prepared multiple ways, from raw to deep-fried to grilled, appear across the city’s menus and are worth making a point of trying.

The Hondori shopping arcade and the Shareo underground mall below it are the main retail and food strips for everyday eating at lunch prices.

Where to Stay

The Peace Park area and the Hondori arcade district put visitors within walking distance of the main sights. Several mid-range business hotels cluster around Hiroshima Station, which makes sense for transit but adds a tram ride to everything interesting. The Granvia Hotel, attached to Hiroshima Station, is comfortable and well-located for early departures. For a different context, staying on Miyajima island at one of the traditional ryokan means waking up when the deer are quiet and the shrine has not yet been reached by the first ferry. Expect to pay ¥20,000 to ¥40,000 per person per night for a full ryokan experience with dinner and breakfast included, which is expensive in absolute terms and reasonable relative to what you get.

Getting Around

Hiroshima has a street tram network, the Hiroden, which is useful, inexpensive (flat fare of ¥230), and slow. Line 2 and Line 6 serve the Peace Memorial Park from Hiroshima Station. For Miyajima, take Hiroden Line 2 to Hiroshima Port, where a high-speed ferry departs for the island, or take the JR San-yo Line to Miyajimaguchi and the JR ferry from there. IC cards (Suica, ICOCA) work on both trams and JR.

Practical Notes

August 6th, the anniversary of the bombing, draws large crowds to the Peace Memorial Park for the annual ceremony. If you are there for the ceremony, book accommodation months in advance. If you are not specifically there for the ceremony, the days immediately before and after 6 August are also busy and emotionally charged.

The museum is not suitable for very young children, and many visitors need time afterwards. The park benches and the riverside are useful for that. Plan nothing demanding for the hour after the museum.

One book worth reading before or after the visit: John Hersey’s Hiroshima, first published in 1946. It follows six survivors through the day of the bombing and its aftermath and remains the clearest account of what the bomb did at the human level. The museum references some of the same people.