Hiroshima, part 1: Peace Memorial Park

After I had been to Nagasaki a couple of weeks ago, I had to visit Hiroshima as well, of course.

The first thing I did when I got there was to visit the Peace Memorial Park. The first thing you see when you get off the tram is the A-bomb dome - the untouched ruins of a building that stood near the bomb's hypocenter and that was one of the very few buildings that were not entirely destroyed. Wikipedia has a photograph of how the building looked originally. Apparently, there are three main reasons why part of the building remained standing: first, it was very close to the hypocenter, so most of the blast came from straight above, and not at an angle. Second, the many windows gave the blast an easy exit out of the building so that it didn't have to take down the walls. And third, the middle part's cylindrical shape is actually a very stable shape.

Atomic bomb dome

How do I know all this? Well, as I approached the A-bomb dome, a volunteer guide offered to take me around for free. She said she does it to improve her English (which I thought was pretty good already), and her knowledge of everything connected to the atomic bomb was really impressive.

Paper cranes in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

After the short tour I continued through the peace park. At one point, I saw many glass cases, such as the one above, filled with the same colorful ribbons that I had already seen in Nagasaki. Only this time, I stopped to take a closer look - and noticed that they are not ribbons at all! Instead, they are many, many folded paper cranes fit into each other. These chains of paper cranes are ubiquitous in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - pretty impressive work by all the people who folded them!

Cenotaph in the peace park

The cenotaph in the peace park is aligned with the A-bomb dome, the peace flame, and the peace museum such that they are all on one line. A side note about the peace flame (it's visible in the picture, but you need to look closely!): it has been burning continuously since it was first lit in 1964, and the goal is to keep it burning until all atomic weapons on Earth have been dismantled. If time travel was possible, I'd be really curious as to the date when this happens. I fear it is a long time away...

My final stop in the peace park was the peace museum. The exhibit that moved me most was a set of two models of central Hiroshima - one showing houses, roads and bridges before the bombing, and the other showing the same region after. Have a look for yourself:

It still blows my mind when I think about how humans are capable of doing that to other humans.