Our two days in Hiroshima were spent in small discussion groups of JASCers and local students. We discussed atomic issues such as education of the nuclear bomb, nuclear proliferation, and ethics of scientists. We began the two days with a tour of the Peace Park and Atomic Bomb Dome, led by the local students. This area was near the detonation point of the bomb, and recived the worst of the destruction. Words don't really do justice to how emotional of an experience this place is.
The Atomic Bomb Dome is a structure that was left as a reminder of the destruction. The first night we arrived, as we were walking past the dome two cranes landed near the top, which was pretty surreal. Below are the many origami cranes that are brought by visitors to the Peace Park as an offering of sorts for peace.
The monument below is a memorial to the moblized students, a group that was active in helping the war effort. Many moblized students were in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped, and they constituted thousands of the over 120,000 casualties.
The Buddhist stupa below is the funerary marker for all those that died.
In the afternoon we heard a lecture from a survivor of the atomic bomb who told us her personal story and about what it was like to experience such horror. We also toured the Peace Memorial Museum, which had powerful exhibitions of personal items, photographs of the destruction, and descriptions of the after-effects of radiation. In the late afternoon I was also able to visit the Hiroshima Museum of Art to see some Meiji painting, a true treat for me.
My special topics group at dinner.
Day three was the Hiroshima forum, where we would present our small group discussions and hear from a professor at a local university. The following view of the A-bomb dome and park is from the restaurant at the hotel where we stayed, probably the nicest accomodation of our trip.
After the forum we presented the nearly 800 paper cranes that we had folded as a group.
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