Visiting Hiroshima
Took an early morning express train to Hiroshima which is 2 hours South of Kyoto and went straight to the Peace Memorial Park. We went through the museum which is on a 12 acre park with the A-bomb Victim Memorial. Seen behind the memorial is the former Hiroshima Prefect building that was never rebuilt. The blast melted its copper roof.
The museum has a lot of the details about Japan leading up to WWII and the development of the first A-bombs. They have copies of letters from Einstein to Roosevelt urging the development of the bomb to beat Germany, from Churchill to Roosevelt urging him to move the development along and other letters selecting the initial targets. Regardless of your view about the A-bomb, the amount of devastation and loss of life is overwhelming especially when you see little things like the a dress from a lost child. Hiroshima has dedicated itself and the park to eliminating all nuclear weapons.
After visiting the museum we went to an Italian Restaurant across the street from the Peace Memorial Park. It was good to find a comfort food restaurant with a menu we could actually read. Then we walked through the park to see the Children’s Peace Monument. Here several groups of children surrounded us and asked where we were from. This was part of their ‘visit the Memorial’ assignment. Other students we saw in the museum were making careful notes about the exhibits apparently so the teachers could be sure they really paid attention. After seeing all of the children at the Peace Museum and at the shrines in Kyoto the other day we wondered if any of them are in school.
We then walked across the bridge from the park into downtown Hiroshima. Hiroshima was re-laid out after the bombing with wide rectangular streets so it is unlike any other city we have seen so far. It has an interesting covered open mall not unlike the Galleria in Milan and underground galleries of shops. We found Hiroshima to be very visitor friendly because of their English language city brochures, maps at every intersection with English & Japanese names, and easy to use transportation system. We recommend it to anyone visiting Japan.
Thursday, April 20, 2006