Hiroshima carries its history with a seriousness that never becomes morbid. The Peace Memorial Park and Museum — built on the ground zero of the 1945 atomic bombing and centred on the skeletal Genbaku Dome (the only structure to survive near the hypocenter, deliberately preserved) — is one of the most important sites in the 20th-century world. The Peace Flame has burned continuously since 1964, to be extinguished only when all nuclear weapons on earth are gone. Visiting is not a comfortable experience. It is a necessary one. And Hiroshima city itself, rebuilt with unusual deliberateness and intelligence in the decades after the war, is now a city of 1.2 million people with a tram network, a major baseball culture (the Hiroshima Toyo Carp is one of Japan's most passionately supported teams), and an active harbour economy.
Getting There
The San'yo Shinkansen reaches Hiroshima from Osaka in 50 minutes and from Tokyo in 4 hours. Hiroshima Airport has connections to Seoul, Shanghai, and domestic routes. The city's tram network is the most extensive still operating in Japan and covers the central area comprehensively. Miyajima Island (Itsukushima) is 20 minutes by ferry from the port — the island's famous torii gate, standing in the tidal water of the Inland Sea, is one of Japan's three great scenic views and is genuinely as extraordinary as advertised, particularly at high tide.
Daily Life
Miyajima deer roam freely like Nara's, and the island is also famous for oysters — Hiroshima produces 60% of Japan's oysters, and the oyster shacks along the Miyajima ferry landing and throughout the prefecture's coastal areas serve them grilled, deep-fried, and raw in a culture of oyster abundance that is unlike anywhere else in Japan. Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki (a savoury pancake built in distinct layers — noodles, cabbage, egg, pork, batter — as opposed to Osaka's mixed style) is one of Japan's great regional food debates, and the Okonomimura building in central Hiroshima has an entire floor dedicated to okonomiyaki restaurants.
Festivals & Culture
The Saijo sake district east of Hiroshima produces sake from some of Japan's purest granite-filtered spring water; the district's autumn sake festival draws 200,000 people. The Onomichi city to the east — a hillside port with a cat-haunted temple walk and an art house cinema culture — has become one of Japan's most written-about small cities for its combination of bicycle culture (the Shimanami Kaido cycling route starts here), literary heritage, and slow revitalization.
Buying Property Here
For property buyers, Hiroshima offers a significant and underpriced Shinkansen city. Houses in Hiroshima city run ¥8M–¥20M. The Inland Sea coastal towns — Onomichi, Mihara, Oosakikamijima island — offer ¥3M–¥10M. Mountain areas toward Chugoku inland have akiya from ¥500,000–¥4M. The Onomichi area in particular has attracted a community of renovation buyers and artists drawn by property prices and lifestyle quality that arrived before the city became well-known, and the combination is still available at reasonable entry points.
Seven Eleven - 3 min walk
