Hiroshima: Day 23

So I guess I balance out having no pictures by having almost twice the usual amount for the blog today.

We had a lot to see today, to say the least, and were pretty much playing the “see as much as you can in one day” game. We got up early and headed over to the A-Bomb Dome and memorial park. What a place it was, it was beautiful, somber, happy, and full of hope all at the same time. There were monuments everywhere for almost everyone and everything. The weather was also gorgeous and both Erin and I agreed that if any place we visited had deserved the beautiful weather it was Hiroshima and the peace park. The weather just added to the feel and magnificence of the place. Here are some pictures from the park.



The A-Bomb dome…

The area around the dome after the bomb went off.
They call it the A-Bomb dome because it was the closest building to the hypocenter that was still standing and somewhat distinguishable. I believe that it was 200 meters from the hypocenter, though I might be a little off. There was a lot of controversy over this building and whether to tear it down or make it a monument. There were a lot of people who said that it brought back horrible and painful memories, but the others who said that it was needed as a monument for peace eventually won out.


A view of Hiroshima from the bridge in the park.


This was a memorial to the children who died because of the bomb, be it when the bomb went off, due to injuries or illness, or leukemia.

This, to me, just shows that the Japanese know how to do it right when it comes to designing memorial parks. Everything lines up perfectly and looks spectacular.

My feet in Hiroshima.

I believe that this was a monument to the Koreans who were in Hiroshima at the time of the bomb. All of the Koreans were captured and forcibly brought over from Korea to work in Hiroshima, there were some 20,000 of them that were killed.


We made our way into the Peace Museum, which held some very powerful and shocking exhibits. I was allowed to take pictures, so I took quite a few.

Model of the area around the Hypocenter before the bomb.

After.


A panorama of Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped, notice the complete devastation.

Aerial view of Hiroshima before the bomb.

And after.

Another model of Hiroshima showing where the bomb went off (the red sphere). It leveled almost the entire city.

A child’s clothes; I believe that the was about 1.2 kilometers from the hypocenter. I forgot to mention that when the bomb went off the surface temperature close to the hypocenter rose to about 4000 degrees Celsius (7232 degrees Fahrenheit), so everyone, I think, within about 500 meters of the hypocenter was completely obliterated by the heat. I don’t have a good picture to show you (you can’t really tell because of the poor lighting) but those people that were close left nothing but shadows on the concrete or ground. For example, in the museum they had a section of a wall with stairs that a man was sitting on then the bomb went off. All of the paint of the wall behind him was burned off from the immediate blast of heat (in fact, the outer layer of concrete was turned into a glassy like surface) but the area directly behind the man was almost normal because his body absorbed the heat. He was completely obliterated and all that was left of his existence was the impression of him burned into the wall behind where he was sitting. Almost everyone within one kilometer died instantly due to the heat and/or the radiation.

Here is a picture of the burns suffered by a man who I think was about 1.4km from the hypocenter.

Roof tiles that were fused together by the heat.


All the glass bottles on a shelf were fused together.

Various melted and fused debris found on the ground.
I have a lot more pictures but sadly can’t show them all. If you would like to see more let me know and I will send an email or something.

A view of the peace park from the museum.

People stated showing up. There were a lot of school children.



This has nothing to do with the museum or anything. It was just a really old GTR.


By this time we had left the museum and were looking for lunch and just wandering around town and towards the contemporary art museum.

Beautiful RX-7, reminded me of the white comet.


After walking for a long while we made it to the contemporary art museum. It actually turned out to be pretty cool. The museum was also really cheap, I think it was only 200 yen to get in which was awesome.

Sculpture outside. It moved with the wind, it was pretty cool.

Inside the museum there was a lot of very strange contemporary art. It was all abstract stuff, but some of it was very interesting and impressive. Overall, I would say that the museum was definitely impressive. We walked outside the museum and there were a lot of sculptures outside.

Funny bird.


All of those seats had spikes in them. Scary huh?



View of Hiroshima from the hill.

We left the museum and started for our next two destinations. Miyajima and Bic Camera (It was a huge camera store and I really wanted to go). We decided to walk to Hiroshima station because it wasn’t that far and the tram was like 150 yen.

Vamos Turbo! I saw this car on the way and had to take a picture of it, I think it was either a Mazda or Nissan.


We actually ran into Bic Camera on our way to the station and decided to go in for a peak since they had a McDonalds inside and we were starving. We ate and then went looking around. The palace was kind of like a big best buy but with more, cooler stuff in each section and a whole floor devoted to cameras and gear. The place was a wonderland for me.

They had everything, even the Eos 1D mk. III, $6,000 of full frame SLR awesomeness. I doubt I will ever have one, but one can dream, right? Just to add, the 1Ds mk. III is the big brother of this camera and is 8-9,000. Yeah, these guys are the price of inexpensive cars.

Tripods, monopods, studio lighting oh my!

Erin noticed that I could spend hours there so she said we had to go to Miyajima.

Bye-bye Bic Camera!

Gooooooooo Carp!

Copyright infringement? No such thing =P.

We got on the train and headed for Miyajima, and then got on the ferry to go out to the island. Here are some pictures from the boat.




There is the gate.

We got off the ferry and were greeted by this sign.

Hehehehe.
We bought some ice cream and as we walked toward the shrine I got the feeling we were being followed. I was right.


The deer wanted some ice cream, go figure. It followed us for a long time.

Natchan! Needless to say we had to buy some.

As we approached the shrine I noticed this shot and thought it was neat.

Miyajima. We caught it when the tide was going out but it still looked pretty cool. When the tide is high the shrine looks like it is floating and when the tide is all the way out they are just buildings in the mud.




I noticed we could see the moon.


The famous gate floating in the water.


The ticket we bought to get into the shrine was only one way so we had to go out and back around through town. It allowed us to see some cool parts of town so I didn’t mind. In the picture above I thought the sky was neat.

On the way out I spent some time framing this shot and getting it to look right. I really, really like how it turned out. I might to do a black and white or sepia conversion later, but for now this is gorgeous enough.


The deer were hanging out. They weren’t as aggressive as the deer in Nara.

I would hate to see the guy who used this.

A sunset from the boat.

Bye-bye Miyajima!

When we got back to Hiroshima there was only about 5 minutes until Bic Camera closed so Erin said we could go back tomorrow before we left for Nagasaki. We went back towards our hostel and stopped at a different okonomiyaki place along the way. Man how I love those things. After dinner we went back to the hostel, surfed the web a little, and then crashed. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. I think we have over 4 hours worth of train rides.