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| Hiroshima after the bomb |
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| Peace Park today |
We arrived in Hiroshima aboard the shinkansen. Our was a MAX - multi Amenities Xpress - with toilets, telephones, vending machines and tea ladies pushing a trolley up and down the aisles. It was also supremely comfortable with lots of leg room, surprising since the Japanese are so much shorter than westerners. Our hotel also had proper beds, lovely pillows and a private bathroom! It was right next to the station so we were soon out and about looking for a restaurant that sold 'hiroshimayaki', a local vegetable pie that is a speciality of the region. We found it in a restaurant underneath the station and sat down at a table complete with hot plate. The chef soon put our pies together and brought them to cook on the hotplate. I had 'special yaki' which was a vegetable pie with seafood.
The next day we were set for some sombre sightseeing to the Hiroshima Peace Park. Hiroshima, of course, was the city upon which the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on August 6th 1945. Our first stop was the Peace Dome. I had been under the impression that this was the museum housing the Hiroshima exhibits but I was wrong. The Peace Dome is the black and scarred skeleton of one of the few buildings to remain standing after the blast levelled the city. It was made of concrete and so survived. It has been retained together with its backened and scorched walls as a permanent reminder of what happened here. It was amazing that it did survive as it stood alongside the bridge over the river that the bomb exploded above.
We walked through the Peace Park past the eternal peace flame to the Peace Bell, which can be rung by all those who want to see peace in the world. Needless to say we all lined up to make this gesture. Then it was on to the Sadako Memorial, which has become a focus for japanese school groups. Sadako was a little girl who survived the explosion but 10 years later developed leukemia. She believed that if she folded 1000 paper cranes then she would survive. She folded more than that but still sadly died. Today Japanese school children bring strings of paper cranes to hang at her memorial. I found it quite emotional watching the school groups. They had obviously had it grilled into them that this was a serious occasion and they were really well behaved. All the classes had prepared something to do and when we arrived the children were playing the recorder and singing. Other groups assembled with their leaders in front holding the cranes and then saying their set piece. The overall message that Japanese school children were getting was that atomic bombs were wrong and world peace was something to be strived for. I couldn't fault that approach. To bring up the next generation with an earnest desire for peace has to be laudable.
We toured the Hiroshima atomic bomb museum where the details of the reasons for the dropping of the bomb were clearly laid out together with information about the bomb's development and the destructive impact of an atomic bomb. I was surprised to find the information factually accurate and not biased, as I had expected. However, whilst great emphasis was placed on learning the lessons of history with regard to the bomb nothing was said of learning the lessons of history with regard to Japanese militarism. I still have problems with the Japanese not coming to terms with their war time past and not dealing adequately with it in their history syllabus in schools.
The next day we were set for some sombre sightseeing to the Hiroshima Peace Park. Hiroshima, of course, was the city upon which the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on August 6th 1945. Our first stop was the Peace Dome. I had been under the impression that this was the museum housing the Hiroshima exhibits but I was wrong. The Peace Dome is the black and scarred skeleton of one of the few buildings to remain standing after the blast levelled the city. It was made of concrete and so survived. It has been retained together with its backened and scorched walls as a permanent reminder of what happened here. It was amazing that it did survive as it stood alongside the bridge over the river that the bomb exploded above.
We walked through the Peace Park past the eternal peace flame to the Peace Bell, which can be rung by all those who want to see peace in the world. Needless to say we all lined up to make this gesture. Then it was on to the Sadako Memorial, which has become a focus for japanese school groups. Sadako was a little girl who survived the explosion but 10 years later developed leukemia. She believed that if she folded 1000 paper cranes then she would survive. She folded more than that but still sadly died. Today Japanese school children bring strings of paper cranes to hang at her memorial. I found it quite emotional watching the school groups. They had obviously had it grilled into them that this was a serious occasion and they were really well behaved. All the classes had prepared something to do and when we arrived the children were playing the recorder and singing. Other groups assembled with their leaders in front holding the cranes and then saying their set piece. The overall message that Japanese school children were getting was that atomic bombs were wrong and world peace was something to be strived for. I couldn't fault that approach. To bring up the next generation with an earnest desire for peace has to be laudable.
We toured the Hiroshima atomic bomb museum where the details of the reasons for the dropping of the bomb were clearly laid out together with information about the bomb's development and the destructive impact of an atomic bomb. I was surprised to find the information factually accurate and not biased, as I had expected. However, whilst great emphasis was placed on learning the lessons of history with regard to the bomb nothing was said of learning the lessons of history with regard to Japanese militarism. I still have problems with the Japanese not coming to terms with their war time past and not dealing adequately with it in their history syllabus in schools.
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