Hiroshima Peace Memorial

Monday was Nov 10, the Marine Corps Birthday, so Dan had the day off, but the kids still had school. Once the kids were gone, we went out on an adventure.  Dan and I headed up to Hiroshima.  You can cut 20-30 minutes off the drive if you take the Sanyo, which is the toll road.  However, the toll road is pricy!  We opted to go there for free and took the surface roads all the way in.  Wow.  You see on the map that it is only 25 miles, but when you are driving in kilometers, and the traffic is slow, it takes you over an hour to get there.  Crazy, I know!

We were able to find our destination, but had a little difficulty navigating to the parking.  We eventually got where we needed to be, with only an extra lap or two around the park.  I was a wee bit dismayed to see the parking area- it was tiny, all in Japanese, and locked your car in till you paid.  I had visions of net being able to figure out how to get our parking paid for and the car released!  No worries, all was well. (Although with the tight quarters, I had to do a 200 point turn in inch increments to get out!)

We walked to the park, visited the museum, and then visited the memorials.  It was interesting.  It was also sad and slightly depressing and a little intense.  I did not take any photos in the museum.  It felt a little wrong to do that.  There was a lot of info in there and a lot of personal stories.  While I would recommend it, I would not recommend taking kids.  The awfulness of the bombing and its effects is a little too descriptively shown there.  The thing I got out of the visit is that an atomic bomb is a truly horrible thing. The deaths of so many people in such a horrible way was incredibly awful and depressing.  However, I loved the Japanese people's message there- one of peace.  Let us live in harmony so this never happens again.

The memorials were lovely and the entire park was tranquil and peaceful, even with a bunch of school kids roaming around.  It was a beautiful day and a lovely trip.

The machine to pay for your parking.  It did have some directions in English, but there was a little guesswork as well.  You parked, then entered the parking space number into the machine.  It did not give you a receipt or anything.  It then locked your car in.  When you returned, you entered your parking space number, it told you how much to pay and you paid.  Then it released your car.

This is the locking mechanism.  The flap under your car lifts up so you can't drive back out till 

you've paid.

The river we crossed over to get to the Peace Park.  This does not do it justice.  The trees alone were gorgeous.  And it is a little odd to have all this hustle and bustle and busy city, then you cross this bridge and suddenly it is peaceful and quiet with no cars or big buildings.

Entrance to the museum.

It was 50 yen to go in (about $.50) and we sprung the extra 300 yen ($3) each for the headphones that gave info in English.  They were kind of unnecessary, since nearly everything in the museum was also written in English, but it did have more stories and a little more embellishment on what you read.

The view of the main memorial and the park from the second floor of the museum.

The little arch on the right sits over the center of where the bomb hit.  The big dome building in the back is one of the only buildings left standing in a 2K radius after the bomb went off. They have left it as is for a memorial.

This is the spot where the bomb detonated 600 meters directly overhead. 

I was trying to get the flame memorial behind it, but you really can't see it. 

The plaque in the fountain around it. 

This was one of the sad stories.  If you can biggify it enough to ready it, you should.  This is the Children's Memorial.  It was erected after a girl died of cancer due to the bomb. 

There was a class of school kids carrying what looked kind of like a length of flowers and they were having some sort of ceremony. 

The big bombed building.  And me.  Dan got me with my eyes closed. 

It was a fascinating building. 

Check it out. 

This shot was for the birds, for Kera. 

The backside of the building.  No, you could not go into it.  It was fenced off. 

And then we had a lovely drive home.  This was the view for part of it. 

But this is mostly what we saw.