Fukuyama Roses

Fukuyama is the second largest city in Hiroshima Prefecture and is known as the Rose City, so its not surprising that images of roses are everywhere. The bus I took to get there from Hiroshima City was called the Rose Liner.

Obviously designs of roses adorn the local manholes and draincovers.

I visited in March and could find no actual roses, though in May they hold the annual Rose Festival with more than half a million roses on display.Tthere were plenty of rose-related products for sale though.

The rose was chosen as the symbol of the city in the early 1950's to give hope to the inhabitants whose city was 80% destroyed by allied bombing at the end of the war.