Hiroshima

I had a reasonable sleep, although my room was so hot, and the window provided little relief. So, I got up early to get an early train to Hiroshima to try to get as much time during the daylight hours as possible. I was on the train about 7:30 or so, and the train took about three hours. I got off at Hiroshima and I am not sure what I was expecting, but it was not all of the massive billboards and noise and etc. just like Tokyo. I guess I hadn't really considered the size or long history of this city. So, using my very, very poor map, went searching for stuff. I thought I'd start at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art and then work my way across the map, but, lo and behold, I got lost. I was following the river, and what I thought was the road (at least in Kyoto I picked up a map that had street names. This time, I had a map with no street names. Annoying.) but it turns out, it wasn't. Plus, only the main roads were on the map, which was especially annoying because I had thought that I was on a main road, but they all looked main. But, I had a smile on my face because the traffic lights make interesting noises. Let's face it, everything in Japan makes interesting noises, but the 'wait' and 'go' sounds on the traffic lights for the sight impaired are kind of like unusual bird calls. I'm not totally sure, but I think they are different depending on which direction you are crossing the road. Anyhow, after totally not figuring out where I wanted to be, I just wandered. Eventually, in the distance, I saw Hiroshima Castle. I thought I'd head there later, but would go for a wander first. I checked out the Museum of Art, (not contemporary art) but there was something on which didn't grab me - I can't recall what it was.
So, I kept wandering and made it to the A-Bomb Dome - which is pretty much the only structure remaining in Hiroshima after the bombing. Pretty amazing and moving stuff. There were structural tests being carried out on the dome, so scaffolding was around it, but this didn't take away from its intensity for me. From here, I headed past many of the memorials set up around the town and headed to the Peace Memorial Museum. I was just ahead of a bus group, and so enjoyed wandering through the museum relatively alone - it was, as you can imagine, very moving, with lots of documents and personal stories from the day of the bombing and the time afterwards. Horrible. I couldn't get through all of the personal accounts, and headed out into the rain. I headed back towards the castle, getting more and more grumpy (how unusual) and decided to get directions to the station to go home. But, when I asked for directions at the gift shop, the salesperson sold me an umbrella, very funky see-through number, and I investigated Hiroshima Castle for a while.
Eventually, I really had enough, so meandered my way back to the station, and back to Tokyo, back to bed for my last night before returning home.