Museum Hopper

After visiting the Peace Park , we headed over to Hiroshima Castle grounds.   The castle grounds are free to get into.  There is the main castle (which does have an admission price), the Gokoku shrine , and a basic museum of the history of the castle.   We first went into the museum first.  It told us how the museum had been restored.  Jason loved learning about the joists and how the museum was built.  He had a hard time believing how few nails the Japanese used in historic construction.  The museum also had a number of bento boxes on display.  The bento boxes are so fun.   Second, we headed to the Gokoku shrine.  My boss had highly recommended that I get a red seal book while I was in Japan as a souvenir.  I bought my book and got my first seal at the Gokoku shrine!   My book is blue with koi on it! After the shrine, we headed up to the castle! The museum was about five stories...

After we checked in our hotel in Hiroshima, we hopped on a street car and went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park .   The park is a sobering reminder of the devastation and destruction from World War II.  The park is a few hundred meters from the epicenter of the atomic bomb, which was dropped on August 9, 1945 and then three days later in Nagasaki.  The building in this photo is of the A-Bomb dome, a UNESCO heritage site, and one of the few buildings that survived the bombing.   The park is full of specific memorials focused on different groups.  One example is a monument in honor of students that were studying abroad in Hiroshima. We also went into one of the two museum buildings.  It really demonstrated the large impact of the bomb.  The first hand accounts are truly touching.  The area's residents continue to be impacted as the effects last and have ongoing impact.  Given no one had ever seen the bomb before, ...