The day started pre-sunrise (again) so that we left enough time to leave at 6:30 for Hiroshima on 2.5 hour bus journey. We had smoked egg for breakfast with, believe it or not, some bread!

We arrived at Hiroshima a little after 9:15 and started queuing for the museum. The exhibitions inside were incredibly evocative, displaying the vast horrors of the Hiroshima bombing. As well as showing many examples of the casulties of the incident, there was: a 3D model of the bombed city area; human shadows in stone; and some of the paper cranes folded by Sadako Sazaki. It was a little too much for some of our group and there were a few tears along the way.

A public reading then took place at 11:00 which involved stories from victims of the atom bomb and some poems. Afterwards, some Scouts took to the stage and expressed their feelings from the visit. Their emotional speeches really resonated with the group and heightened the harrowing effect of the experience.

After the reading finished, we ate lunch and walked down to the riverside and took some pictures next to the A-bomb dome and the statue of Sadako Sazaki.

The refreshing air conditioning then kept us cool in the gift shop for a while before we got back on the coach to Yamaguchi.

We were then treated to some delightful pasta and poached pears with salted caramel, curtsey of Aln patrol.

— by Sal Wilcox and Adam Blakey

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