.031 - hiroshima and miyajima

Apologies for not updating in a while. My access to the internet at home has been cut off for the last week.

Friday we went to the site of the first atomic bomb dropping, Hiroshima. I know I'm probably being like every other tourist right now in saying this, but being on the actual grounds was kind of surreal. Maybe it's because I'm the kind of person that is super self-conscious of everything action that I make, but standing on the ground where 300,000 people died in an instant a little over 50 years ago(August 6, 1946) is a little disheartening.

When I got off the train, I guess naively expected everyone living in Hiroshima to look super depressed. But other than the fact that it was pouring down rain, Hiroshima looked just as busy as Yamashina(the small city I'm living in) or Kyoto. I guess it's mainly the tourists that don the looks of remorse and reflection.

Before leaving to be depressed we had to fill our stomachs, so we had Hiroshima Okonomiyaki(Japanese Pizza with special noodle around the sides). Oishi! I haven't had something that good in a while.
We then the only remaining building from the bombing, today known as the A-bomb dome. It was preserved such that the building remained in the same state it was in right after the bomb went off. Below are some pics.


Afterwards, crossed the Aioi Bridge(the point at which the bomb was dropped) to the Peace Hiroshima museum. Normally, I don't enjoy going to museum to see depictions of historical events but this museum ended up being more raddling than the A-bomb Dome and the park surrounding the Aioi bridge. The beginning of the museum started off with a history of Hiroshima, then went into the state of Hiroshima during WWII, and then towards the end of the 1st floor made an shocking into Hiroshima after the bomb went off.


This part of the museum had actual scaled replicas of Hiroshima before and after the bombing, clothing of people that passed and what "that particular person" was doing when he/she died, and a watch from that day that displaying the exact time the bomb hit(8:15am). It also had various artifacts like many letters to the President stating the need to drop an atomic bomb Japan and some begging for the US NOT to use it.


Apparently the list of cities the US has on it's potential target list included Kyoto at one point, but it was taken off because one of the general "liked" Kyoto. It was also pretty shocking to learn that Japan still didn't surrender after the bomb on Hiroshima(hence the reason for the second on Nagasaki).

Anyhow, the most shocking part of museum came at the end. It was pretty much a display of the destruction of the a-bomb. It included things like preserved hair locks, nails, wax sculptures of melted survivors, pictures of the burned and ravaged survivors, human shadows forever imprinted by the heat rays of the bomb, melted children's bikes, and many other very disturbing images. I'm sorry I didn't get too many pictures of these but it was just too depressing to take out a camera. In my opinion, I feel pictures of these devalue these artifacts.

On a little bit of a brighter note, we stayed the night on the nearby island of Miyajima. According to my Okaasan it's one of the most beautiful areas in Japan. It's the place with the huge torii standing in the middle of the ocean. Beautiful stuff. Beware if you go, cause there are also wandering deer. They definitely came up behind us to "say hello" on multiple occasions.

I think pictures of this place rather words best show off it's beauty, so I'll stop for now....