After checking out we started on our walk to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Park. It was not to far about 20minutes maybe.
There was a small park on the way we walked through. Beside that park is Hiroshima castle which you can see a picture of the wall. The other pictures show this park.
A few minutes later and we arrived the A-Bomb dome. This is as far as I know, the only building left that, after surviving the bomb, was not torn down or remade. The way it is now is the way it was after the bomb, except for some structural support added over the years to preserve it. The building was at one time the Genbaku Dome which was an exhibition hall. This building was just under 500 ft away from the where the bomb exploded.
They also had a memorial for all the child labourers in Japan during the war right near here.
You can see those long colourfull lines of paper. Those are all individually folded paper cranes linked together. We had a bit of a laugh here too, as their is a button you can push here that will talk about this monument in English or Japanese. After I pushed the English button about 5 seconds later 2 white guys in suits came walking from out of nowhere behind the monument, so Naomi thought the button must summon them.
Next we walked over to the main park where various monuments and little shrines are scattered throughout.
The first is a monument the children who suffered from the bomb. It is inspired by a girl who, after surviving the bomb at 2 years old injury free and seemingly without disease, began to get the effects from the radiation poisoning around 10 and was diagnosed with leukemia and died at aged 12. She believed if she folded 1000 paper cranes she would be cured, and so the monument you can see the child holding a giant crane, as well as around it are tons of paper cranes sent from children all over the world.
This area you can see a mound in the back, it is where they brought a lot of the bodies near the hypocenter to be burned or put the ashes and remains of people they found.
We headed to the main museum next after looking around here, but got sidetracked by a small memorial building. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Vicitims. It was a small building that you first walk down a long circling path that has glass displays telling you various facts about the bombing. After your at the bottom you go into this room, a big circle, that is the view from standing at the hypocenter of the bomb blast, and on all the walls around you is a 360 degree view of the what the city looked like after the bomb. All the walls are covered in the real photos. In the center is a small fountain, dedicated to the people who, after the bomb, died while trying to get water. Was hard to get pics in here cause of the lighting, but I did my best.
In the next room they had a large screen that had about 20 pictures of people at a time, and would constantly change, of victims from the bombing. They also had touch panel computers along the wall that you could use to look up people.
After this they had a small room with tvs, showing the stories of survivors. They had english subtitles. We watched a few, which were, of course, depressing. The videos used art to show their stories. The one that stuck in my mind, was of a factory worker, who for once slept in late "just 5 more minutes..." and when he woke up, rushed for the train just to see it pulling away from the station. His coworkers all waved and told him its fine, jump on the next train and we will see you there. None of them survived.
They had a few items on display, clothes and peoples things.
Across the hall was a library where we spent about 20minutes, Naomi watching a video from a survivor while I was looking at various photos.
After we left, and Naomi on a downer, we headed to the main museum (where she would later exit on more of a downer).
The first main room mostly deals with the history of Hiroshima and events leading up to the bomb. This place was packed with people as well, mostly tourists. They had many displays showing things from the city before the bombing. Unlike the Yamato museum, this place has everything in English and Japanese.
In the middle of the room they had 2 large dioramas of the main area before and after the bomb. I managed to get my own little before and after shot, which came out really well. You can see in the top left of the picture the building we visited first. The red stick shows where the bomb fell.
The room had a bunch of repo-documents from Einstein and others who helped build, plan, and decided what to do with the bomb. And lots of other things relating to it. Hard to get to the cases since you were elbowing whities out of your way all around you. They had a model of the A-Bomb Dome's Dome, about 75% of the size in their too. Actually I am not sure what was the point of that one.
They also had some models of buildings that survived the bomb, what they were and what happened to them. Upstairs they had stuff dealing more with the victims. A rather creepy diorama of 3 women, I think a mother and her kids, walking through rubble with their skin peeling off from the after effects. Also another large model showing exactly the spot where the bomb blew up (it was detonated in the air actually, not on the ground). They also had a replica of the bomb itself, Little Boy. Lots of pictures of victims after the bomb, which are quite grisly to look at as you can imagine.
There was more, but camera was very low on battery and I had to conserve. The last picture shows a childs uniform after the bomb.
They had many more artifacts in here, from people and places. Some most interesting were things that were fused together..such as roof tiles and about 30 small glass bottles that all were stuck together.
All in all it was a pretty depressing place. A must see though I think. Interesting fact though. Naomi told me it used to be much more realistic, but people complained about it so they toned it down recently. Seems very strange to me.
There was a gift shop, but nothing interesting. For some very odd reason, they had a bunch of Obama t-shirts..dunno what was with that. Apparently Japanese people really like him.
On the way back we stopped by the spot where the bomb exploded. There is a plaque and heres a shot looking up to where it would have detonated. It blew up over a hospital, and today a new hospital stands in its place actually.
Next up is a post about our visit to Hiroshima castle.
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