My family and I all took the bullet train (Shinkansen) to Kyoto and Hiroshima to see the sights...
A picture showing the route we took from Tokyo to Hiroshima
My first post is about Hiroshima -- I think the biggest thing about Hiroshima is... well... y'know... the atomic bomb dropped on 8:15am on August 6, 1945. That morning, the crew of Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb that exploded 600 meters above Shima Hospital in the Saiku-machi part of Hiroshima, killing 200,000 people and decimating nearly everything below it. The Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall (AKA the A-bomb Dome) was purposely left as a memorial by the city to serve as a reminder of the destruction.
The park was very beautiful and also had several other monuments, such as the "Flame of Peace". The design is meant to suggest two hands pressed together at the wrist with palms pointed upward, symbolizing the condolence for victims "unable to satisfy their thirst for water, as well as the desire for nuclear abolition and enduring world peace." If you look closely, due to my amazing photography skills (obviously), you can see the flame that has burned continuously since August 1, 1964 and will continue to burn until all nuclear weapons no longer exist (so... forever).
Beyond that was the Cenotaph for the A-bomb Victims, built to resemble an arch-shaped house to shelter the souls of the victims. Within it is the registry of the names of the people who died from the bombing (apparently a total of 221,893 victims).
After that, we went into the museum which was incredibly depressing. They had clothing of school children who died from the explosion, and also a depiction of people with their skin melting off. It was very weird to see something like that from an outsider's perspective, where the US wasn't portrayed as the "good guy" and the bombing wasn't seen as necessary to end the war. The memorial park was very powerful and definitely served its message of nuclear disarmament loud and clear.
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