I wanted to complete Hiroshima inn town/castle town before 8/6, the A-bomb day of Hiroshima, or 8/15, the day of Imperial Japan’s surrender.
As you can imagine, today you will find almost no trace of old San’yodo/Saigoku Kaido highway in downtown Hiroshima. However, many pre-WWII records show what Hiroshima inn town/castle town used to be. I highly recommend to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum first as they have a diorama of pre-WWII downtown Hiroshima.
Alright, here is the overview.
According to old maps, east side of Enko bridge was the beginning of Hiroshima castle town, with the guard gate. One of old maps of Hiroshima castle town is available in Hiroshima castle, and Hiroshima city published a leaflet of San’yodo/Saigoku Kaido trail map bilingually, which I posted in the end of this article.
In this small square by the bridge, there is a relief of a song by a neo-Confucian scholar Rai San’yo(1780-1832).
Here the song says:
“An evening mist is being formed at the foot of Enko bridge,
I can see street lights on both sides of the river,
My companion, please don’t be suspicious of my fast steps,
I want to get home quickly before my mother falls asleep.”
He was permitted to leave Kyoto where he was studying and teaching. He wanted to get home so that he can share his stories in Kyoto with his mom.
From here on, you will see many structures and buildings that survived the atomic bomb explosion. Built in 1926, Enko bridge is one of them, and a JSCE Civil Engineering Heritage.
The next notable structure you will encounter is Kyobashi bridge, another bridge which survived the atomic bomb explosion. Kyobashi bridge was built in 1927, and thus is the oldest steel bridge in Hiroshima city.
San’yodo/Saigoku Kaido turns here southward.
Note that from here, there are more than two routes according to Hiroshima city leaflet.
Passing by Shokoji temple.
According to several blogs, this temple has some tombstones and a jizo statue that survived the atomic bomb explosion. However, I could not confirm this info from Hiroshima city website.
And we are turning westward, onto Butsudan(Buddhist altar) street.
This area is very busy: Nagarekawa Ginza street.
A monument to commemorate the atomic bomb victims in this area.
We are entering Kinzagai arcade street for a bit, then entering Hiroshima-Hondori shopping street.
Hiroshima-Hondori shopping street is a vibrant shopping street with lots of restaurants, from my last trip experience in 2024.
Kirin Beer hall building was built in 1938. Of course, the building got significant damage by the atomic bomb but was restored. The original building was demolished then the new building is sitting here, part of tiles from the old building has been attached on the wall to commemorate the old building.
Former Obayashi Corporation building used to stand here. It was built as Konoike Bank Hiroshima branch in 1923. The building had significant damage by the atomic bomb. It was eventually restored but was demolished in 2002. You will still see the sign here.
This building uses ruins of the former Imperial Bank Hiroshima branch building. This is another city-registered A-bomb surviving building. Today, it’s been owned by a famous local bakery, Hiroshima Andersen.
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