In contrast to typically polite but distant Japan, Hiroshima seems more apt to wear its heart on its sleeve. At the Hall of Remembrance, where a panorama of the city’s destruction has been painstakingly put together with 140,000 tiles – each one representing a death – a plaque regretfully recounts how “mistaken national policy” was responsible for “loss of precious life”. Later, I cross over the Motoyasu River, and come face-to-face with Hiroshima’s most haunting A-bomb relic: the shell of a building miraculously left standing at the hypocentre of the explosion, a tattered ghost of violence among modem prosperity. Maybe this is why Hiroshima has risen so successfully from its literal ashes; it has moved on, but it refuses to forget.
Over-sea cycling – My last stop of the trip sounds suitably pioneering for forward-thinking Japan: I’m going to go island hopping… by bike. Not that they’ve engineered hover cycles, but rather a series of impressive suspension bridges – with excellent bicycle lanes – that connect six small islands in Hiroshima Prefecture to each other.
The route is short and flat enough for me to entertain taking along my girlfriend, notorious for her lack of skill on two wheels. We rent Mary Poppins-esque, six-gear bikes, and determine to ride 30km to the third island, Ikuchijima. Again, we find ourselves oft rescued by friendly locals: when said girlfriend careers into a ditch after losing control on a quiet country lane (with, I might add, no pedestrians, no other cyclists, and minimal traffic), the lone nearby driver screeches to a halt and reverses back up the road to check she’s OK. That afternoon, when the chain falls off her bike, two passers-by come to the rescue and fix it with chopsticks.
Island hopping by bike might sound cutting-edge, but this proves to be Japan at its simplest. We bring real meaning to the word ‘tootle’, gently pedalling rural roads, passing the occasional farm, and not a neon sign in sight. The pace only ever quickens at the bridges, which whizz with cars and trucks. But the bike lanes are niftily separated, leaving you safe to absorb the views of citrus groves and hills dotted with wooden houses, while cycling over the sea. It’s really quite something. The islands become progressively prettier with every pedal, and we enjoy a particularly spirit-lifting final few kilometres along a coastal road.
The distinctly un-Japanese rows of palm trees end at Sunset Beach, man-made but appreciated as a spot to watch the sun dipping low all the same. We find a night’s lodging at a snoozy guesthouse with its own onsen -a traditional Japanese hot-spring bath. In lieu of any other guests, it becomes our private spa, with a view out over fishing boats bobbing on the water. It’s not lost on me that this final night encapsulates everything I’d hoped for from my journey: a place at once distinctively connected to the stereotypical Japan, and yet entirely, and thrillingly, separate.
