Day 131 (Hiroshima) : Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony

Today is the anniversary of the first atomic bombing in history that fell over Hiroshima August 6th, 1945. I missed the ceremony because it is held at 8:15am the time the bomb was recorded as going off over the city. I took a few pictures that I will post later but for the most part I refrained from being the stereotypical tourist, mostly because there were already thousands out there snapping pictures of prayer offerings and people paying their respects like it was some kind of feature at Universal Studios. There was a huge turn out of people from all over the world, so it hardly felt like I was in Japan.

The Peace Memorial Museum was something that you have to see for yourself. I was surprised because all of my college level courses in Asian studies repeatedly painted Japan as being stuck in some kind of denial phase of the role they played in aggressions throughout the Asian Pacific. The description in the museum went to great detail in describing Japan's role in occupying Korea and invading China. While it didn't use the word "rape" it did clearly refer to Nanking as a massacre, which I would like to shove in some of my old professors' faces after all the things they "taught" to students state side.

At night they had the tourounagashi tradition where people write their wishes for world peace or lost loved ones on paper that is hooked around a wooden float with a candle. Thousands of the floats are put in the river and the site at night is very moving. My memory is fuzzy, but I'm thinking they did the same thing at some point in the Karate Kid. I will be attaching pictures after I get back to Osaka in a few days. I managed to forget my charge kit for my laptop and for some reason the battery started off at 90% even though it is always plugged in when I'm at home. I'll probably have juts enough to write my blog tonight and tomorrow before it dies but I can always post from my phone in a pinch.

-- Updated Pictures --
These are the floats for the tourounagashi thing, each one has a wish written on all four sides and a candle in the center. The view is much better when it's dark but it didn't seem to be getting dark soon enough for me.

I think it's hard to tell from the picture but this is like a million swans for that belief that you can have a wish come true if you fold a thousand swans. They set up stands and visitors can fold as many as they want, so after a few tens of thousands of visitors walk through you start to see these everywhere.


This is a difficult shot to explain, but it's part of the Peace Memorial. There is actually a huge distance between me, the flame in th emiddle, and the arch way off in the distance. All of which are famous parts of the memorial park.