I spent most of my visit to Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park sitting on a bench.
This was partly due to the fact that I was supercalifragilisticexpialidociously hungover from the previous night’s festivities; after gatecrashing the Hiroshima JETs’ welcome party to catch up with two old friends, Fiona and Gavin, I ended up at a bar with a lovely Aussie couple on their way to Kyoto, an ESL teacher fresh off the boat from South Korea, and a bartender far too liberal with her vodka. By the time I slumped into bed it was well past 3 a.m.
The City of Water had been on my travel bucket list forever, so when the summer leave form was being passed around at school and I realised I had a bunch of days left over from the last contract year, it took me all of two seconds to find and book a hotel. It seemed a fitting time to visit too: this August marks the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.