Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

We bought our breakfast from a convenience store, and ate it in the park. During the day, we found it to be full of colour and movment and noise. There were schoolkids everywhere. The people were lovely. My friend and I got caught up chatting (with our highschool-level Japanese and their limited English) to a class of littlies and their teacher, who had called out to us as we passed.

At night, it’s very quiet and serene. Genbaku Dome is lit up from the inside and looks very eerie.

Beautiful, calm and peaceful, hopeful and quiet and serene.

Amazing place. Really makes you think about the issues, but it somehow has a very positive, calming feeling (not to say it isn’t terribly sad – I went in a group of about 25 and I dont think there was a dry eye at the end)

Nicely laid out, and it’s interesting to see salarymen eating their lunches in the park. If you go, ring the bell of peace, see the Childrens Memorial, check out the Memorial Flame and don’t miss the Korean Memorial.

Seriously. There’s no place like it on earth, and there never should be, but you must go so that there never will be again.

I knew I was just gonna lose it when I got there. Even months before hand, just thinking about going there would make me start to tear up. Needless to say, when I was actually there, I was flat out crying for quite a while, especially in the museum.

I arrived in the city on a warm August evening and took the streetcar to the park…it was very peaceful, a few high schoolers were sitting in circles playing rock-type stuff on acoustic guitars. The feeling of hope and belief in a peaceful future was SO INCREDIBLY palpable. You were suspended for a moment.

This is a very sobering site. Most of all, elderly people who witnessed this terrible event were neither bitter nor held a grudge. After visitng the museum and seeing the pictures/movies, you can’t help but question this tragedy. Don’t forget to ring the bell.

Seriously!