Japan Adventure: Grammy and GrandDad travel to Hiroshima Day 6

On Thursday we left for our trip to Hiroshima. We took the shinkansen (bullet train). It took about 4 hours from Tokyo to arrive in Hiroshima.

Chris and Avery shared a delicious obento box with tankatsu.

Grammy and GrandDad helped keep the girls entertained on the train!

Once we arrived in Hiroshima, we took a tour of the Memorial Peace Park and Atomic Bomb Museum. It has an interesting, educational, and yet emotional exhausting experience. However, one I'm so glad were got to experience.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is a memorial park in the center of Hiroshima, Japan. It is dedicated to the legacy of Hiroshima as the first city in the world to suffer a nuclear attack, and to the memories of the bomb's direct and indirect victims (of whom there were as many as 140,000).
The location of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was once the city’s busiest downtown commercial and residential district. The park was built on open field that was created by the explosion. The annual August 6 Peace Memorial Ceremony, which is sponsored by the city of Hiroshima, is also held in the park. The purpose of the Peace Memorial Park is to not only memorialize the victims, but also to establish the memory of nuclear horrors and advocate world peace.

Sounding the children's monument are several cases that hold 1,000 origami cranes. The crane is symbolic of good health and long life. The children's memorial is to honor all the children who died and suffered injuries or side effects from the a-bomb.

The Children's Peace Monument is a statue dedicated to the memory of the children who died as a result of the bombing. The statue is of a girl with outstretched arms with a folded paper crane rising above her. The statue is based on the true story of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who died from radiation from the bomb. She believed that if she folded 1,000 paper cranes she would be cured. To this day, people (mostly children) from around the world fold cranes and send them to Hiroshima where they are placed near the statue.

The a-dome is the last remaining structure after the atomic bomb was dropped. It has been preserved as a world heritage site, a memorial that represents the pain, tragedy, destruction, sorrow and loss that war inflicts.

The atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945. It has been nearly 65 years since the city of Hiroshima was completely destroyed. It has since recovered and rebuilt into a beautiful city.