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Parcly Taxel: I found a very thick and tight-fitting blanket in the bedroom, which induced a deep and comfortable sleep after moving more than 300 kilometres west on the San'yō (山陽) Shinkansen. I didn't need to bottle myself to relax my muscles, but it still glistened beside me; I focused a little magic on its long neck, flowing with the soothing tug on my lower body which flew and stretched to fit its space.

Spindle: Hiroshima is on the northern edge of the Seto Inland Sea between Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, straddling the Ōta River (太田川) as it splits into a delta. Land-wise it belongs to the Chūgoku region, Honshu's westernmost tip facing Kyushu. Our accommodation was in the city's east.

Heading out into the morning, the first thing that greeted us was construction works, a straight-walled trench dug by a bulldozer where underground cables could be laid or repaired. Most parts of Japan still rely on overhead cables for their electric supply, the kind Applejack loves seeing when trotting to Dodge Junction, though there is a movement to replace them with underground cables so that tourists won't see a cluttered skyline – especially in Tokyo for the Olympics. We scurried away to the train station, where we got on the sightseeing bus to the Peace Memorial Park.

Parcly: Spindle settled in Hiroshima after turning into a windigo and remained for six years, until the atomic bomb was dropped at eight in the morning. Hundreds of thousands of ponies died, either from the blast itself or a typhoon that swept over the ravaged city a few months later, and a barren field was created that now houses the Park. Of course, spirits aren't affected by any of these disasters.

The Atomic Bomb Dome (原爆ドーム) is the part of the Park inscribed as a World Heritage Site. It was once an industrial exposition centre and was the closest standing building, ruined as it was, to the bomb's hypocentre. I stood by a large rock and bowed down, reflecting on the victims as well as the survivors.

A larger structure was evident when crossing a bridge to the Park per se. The Dome forms one end of an axis that cuts through an eternal flame burning for the victims before reaching the saddle-shaped cenotaph, the most important attraction and monument of Hiroshima – and perhaps of all modern Japan, whose current status is largely based on the atomic bomb's social effects.

Spindle: Under the saddle is a stone with a Japanese inscription:
安らかに眠って下さい
過ちは
繰返しませぬから
"Rest in peace, we shall not repeat the error". The ambiguous subject is deliberate, and decades after the cenotaph was erected a note was put up clarifying that "we" refers to all sentient species, not just the Japanese.

They suffered a fate far worse than myself, dying suddenly and without exception, wherever they came from. The thrashing of my mane and tail slowed as I approached the flower bed, my hooves pushing against the floor yet sometimes phasing through it. I cried, and my tears froze into pebble-like hailstones…

Afterwards came the Peace Memorial Hall, which is a more explicit monument to the victims of the bomb or hibakusha (被爆者 – note that this can also refer to the victims of the second atomic bombing at Nagasaki). It has a round silent room, a searchable register of the victims and a library containing memoirs.

Parcly: Looking at the sun, it only took us one hour to traverse all of the Park. The main wing of the Peace Memorial Museum was closed for renovations, and lunchtime was coming regardless, so we looped back to Hiroshima Station on the bus.

From there we went to Miyajimaguchi (宮島口), named because of its ferry services to Miyajima. This island hosts another World Heritage Site, Itsukushima Shrine (厳島神社), principally remembered for its main gate whose base lies submerged during high tide, like Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy.

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Posted previously at: 2017-12-16T15:08:15 | Posted previously by: Parcly Taxel