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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Hiroshima (very sorry about the format, using a Japanese keyboard)

Well we thought it would be appropriate to let Hiroshima have its own post. As you know the US was the first and only country to use a 
nuclear weapon on August 6th and 9th 1945 which took the lives of over 200,000 people including of course Japanese, Chinese, Korean and even US POA’s. So yesterday was a very powerful day to say
the least. 

We headed to Hirsoshima via the Shinkansen which took about 1 
1/2 hours from Osaka. We then took a different kind of train that 
took only coins to get to the A-bomb Dome site. We took a few 
moments to really take in the site and it was just sad and amazing 
at the same time. Amazing because the Japanese have been able to keep this building the way it was since the bombing and to just the bricks still laying there as they did in 1945 was quite powerful. After this we headed through the Hiroshima peace memorial park which was also a very touching experience..There was a peace memorial for the
children of the bombing as well as for the students. There was a
also a site where the ashes of over 70,000 people lay. 

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial musuem which documents the bombing and its aftermath was heartwrenching. The museum shows scale
models of before and after the bombing along with pictures that were taken of the people shortly after and things that were left behind after the bombing such as clothes, fingernails, skin, purses, glasses, 
money, and so much more. Holding back the tears was hard
because the museum depicts what happened so vividly. We couldn’t
believe what we were seeing. The inhamunity of it all was just all too much and all too real. Seeing the melted tricycle of a three year old was one of the hardest things that was seen at the museum. At the end there was also video of survivors that told their stories. 



Although very sad, visiting this museum is something we recommend 
to everyone. It was educational, powerful, and showing the recovery of the Japanese people was uplifting. 



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