Hiroshima

May 24, 2009

After dropping our luggage off at our hostel, we set off to explore the city. We walked around the Peace Memorial Park. There were different monuments for the victims of the atomic bombing, many of which had tons of colorful origami cranes strung on a string. At the Children’s Peace Memorial, children from all over the world have folded paper cranes to be added to the memorial.

We also went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The museum had personal belongings from people in Hiroshima during the bombing, firsthand accounts of what had happened that day, information about why Hiroshima was chosen as the first target, and models and pictures of what the city looked like before and after. I thought it was a really sad, but good museum. After the museum, we also saw the A-Dome.

Afterwards, we went to the Hiroshima-jo Castle. The original castle had of course been destroyed during the war, so this was just a reconstruction. We got a great view of the city from the top.