Down

Next we hopped over to Hiroshima, somewhere that's been on the top of our list for a long time and that we finally got to visit.

It's definitely an experience. The city itself is beautiful, green and vibrant. The peace park is solemn, nicely laid out and definitely peaceful. But until you go to the museum, it's easy to forget the devastation that happened.

At one point I was thinking, why was the bombing here so much worse than what's happening in Iraq or happened in Bosnia or Dafur or any of those gut wrenching tragedies. And then you saw the pictures. And read the stories.

It was so hot that it fused glass.
It was so powerful that it blasted stone and burnt shadows of the bodies that were against it.
It was 4000 degrees.
People died immediately
Many didn't.
Deaths were ... slow and not what anyone could imagine.
The deaths and the pain kept happening.
Keep happening even now.

I guess we've heard it all before but ...
When you're there it really hits home.

And then there's me and my peace cranes.

Sadako was 2 when the bomb dropped and grew up healthy and happy. By the time she reached her teens though, she was dying of leukemia as many of the young survivors did. Following ancient Japanese tradition that tells if you fold 1000 paper cranes you can have one wish, Sadako started folding. The story travelled around the world and millions of paper cranes were sent to her. She died before folding 1000 herself but even now hundreds of thousands are sent to Hiroshima every year and some are displayed at her memorial.


I guess it's one of those places you visit out of a mixed sense of morbidity, curiosity, duty but it touches you for so many more reasons. Mostly its strength and its humanity. They said nothing would grow there for 75 years but less than 70 years later it's growing and beautiful but still remembering.

More photos? Sure