The Same Umbrella: Hiroshima Part 1: Peace Park

In addition to lots of other memories made during Jennifer's parents' visit, a highlight for all of us was certainly our three day jaunt to Hiroshima. Historically significant, UNESCO recognized and geographically different from Atsugi, we didn't want to miss it before our Japanese hour glass runs out of sand. Looking back, we're thinking that it deserves a place in our top three trips within Japan.

Our first day, appropriately rainy, centered around the A-Bomb Dome and the adjacent Peace Park and museum, which all aim to remember the atomic bomb explosion over the city on August 6, 1945. It is most definitely a weird feeling to visit the site as an American and gaze upon the remnant destruction caused by our own nation. We'd need to study more of the details to draw any conclusions as to the necessity or moral implications of choosing to drop the bomb in the first place, but it was somber nonetheless. The A-Bomb Dome is the remains of what was formerly the Industrial Promotion Hall, positioned almost directly below the hypocenter of the bomb. It was remarkably untoppled by the blast and what's left now stands as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Other highlights of the Peace Park include the Flame of Peace (said to remain burning until all nuclear weapons are gone from the earth), the Cenotaph (a tribute to the bomb's victims) and a Children's Peace Monument (inspired by the story of Sadako Sasaki and her 1000 paper cranes).

The museum came highly recommended to us and it was excellent! Filled with information about Hiroshima before and after the bomb, along with artifacts from the area's victims (most of which were touchingly donated by their parents and relatives), we left much more informed about that fateful day that signaled the end of WWII. Not surprisingly absent from the museum was commentary about Japan's own atrocities during the war, but the Korean victims who suffered radiation poisoning after being forced by the Japanese to clean up the bomb's wreckage were humbly and rightly acknowledged.

As for current day Hiroshima, the city is a vibrant testimony to the resilience of the city and the Japanese people. Other than the areas dedicated to remembering the blast, the city thrives as a modern seaside metropolis despite its burdened past.