Hurtling to Hiroshima

Monday 12th April
We awoke to the sight of a grey rainy day this morning, but as we had a bullet train to catch, we had to get a wriggle on to return the scooters to Mr Tanaka. We chatted over breakfast with a gorgeous young German guy and a rather eccentric Danish man. These are the people who make staying in hostels such a good idea. After breakfast, we kitted up for our ride in the rain. There are more man-hole covers in Osaka than I've ever seen and we are always very conscious that wet man-hole covers and painted white lines are a real hazard for motorcyclists, so I hated every minute of the ride to the scooter hire place. When we arrived, Mr Tanaka wasn't there so we had to try to communicate with his colleague who has very little English. We exchanged a few words in each other's language and I was pleased to hear him use the word 'deposit' because we had 60 000 yen to collect (about $700.00). Mr Tanaka, who speaks a little more English, then turned up and we were soon on our way with deposit safely in our hands. We walked to the Umeda station and caught a train to the Shin-Osaka station, which is on the bullet train line. We're really getting the hang of this public transport business! We booked a seat in the non-smoking carriage and were soon whizzing along the rails to Hiroshima. A display came up at one point to say that we were travelling at 285kph. Somewhat speedier than the speed to which we had become accustomed (usually about 40 to 50 kph on the scooters). By scooter, it took us 2.5 hours from Kobe to Osaka and it took us only 10 minutes to get back by shinkansen. It was quite amazing to see the world go flashing past at such a speed, but it was a very relaxing and comfortable ride. The best bit was that it felt like a free trip because we'd bought our Japan Rail passes a few months ago. We can swan through the ticket gates and flash our passes and we're on our way.
We figured out how to catch the tram to the Peace Park and spent a few hours visiting the A-bomb Dome and the Museum. I can't put into words how I felt about seeing the effects of the bomb on the city and its people. It was really disturbing but I'm glad I have now seen this significant place. I bought a copy of "Sandako and the thousand cranes" in Japanese to practice my reading skills. Sandako was the young girl who contracted leukaemia after the bomb, and began folding paper cranes. She believed the old story that folding 1000 paper cranes makes wishes come true. There seem to be two versions of her story. I was under the impression that she died before she reached 1000 cranes, but a display in the museum says that she did make it to 1000 and continued to make them until she died. Some of the cranes are on display, and they are really tiny. She had to use a needle to fold some of them as they are so small. The tears that I'd been struggling with won out at this point.
After the museum we went to the Peace Bell and rang it once for each member of the family. At the nearby children's monument there was a group of Japanese school children singing a beautiful song in Japanese. I had no idea what they were singing, but I had another teary moment. Near the children's monument there is a display of paper cranes which school children from all over the world send to Hiroshima.
We returned to the station and found our hotel which was nearby. We didn't have far to go for dinner tonight. Another scrumptious noodle dinner was found just around the corner. I braved the curry udon noodles tonight, which could have been good or bad, but I'm happy to report they were "oishii" (delicious).