Greetings!
Hiroshima means "broad island". You couldn't tell it when we arrived on the ferry from Miyajima. But when Mori Terumoto saw it in 1589, it was a bunch of little flat islands stretching out from a hilly mainland. He built a castle, and began to connect the islands with rocks from the hills. His successors continued the plan. Hiroshima is still flat, but it's home to 1.2 million residents today.
In 1945, there were 350,000, and we killed 140,000 of them in 10 seconds at 8:15am. The latest toll is 320,000 when you count in those who died from radiation poisoning. Before we boarded two trains to Nagasaki, we visited the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Museum. The highlights for me in it were the artifacts collected from the ruins, and the video stories (20,000) of the survivors. Much of the rest was literally old news on wall displays.
Outside in the Peace Park, we saw several memorials dedicated to the event, which were much more intended to drive home the importance of stopping it from happening again.
Mostly sponsored and maintained by children and their advocates, walking around these reminders brought home the message more powerfully.
And if you're wondering what that paper that Teddy, our guide is holding up to the camera...it's his flowchart on our route today (bus to train station to use lockers, taxis to museum and back, lunch, retrieve luggage, train, train, taxi, etc.) - so he wouldn't get us lost.
To see all of the photos taken today, click on
Saturday, April 14th, Nagasaki, Japan.
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