The current weather situation in Japan looks something like this.

We were greeted by an exiting Typhoon when we arrived the first day, and now we had our second “tropical sadness” (as Chinedu put it), more commonly known as tropical depression. As a result, there has been rain everywhere for the last few days.

A train ride sounded better in the rain than on a nice day, so we decided to take a day trip to Hiroshima.

There are a lot of cool vending machines in Japan, including this one that makes pretty good, hot coffee for you right on the train platform.

The train system is simply fantastic. I just wish we had it in the US.

Lucky for us, we got to ride the cool new Shinkansen train. It was designed by a famous designer in Japan, and has a video game console you can spend your ride playing if you thought to reserve the front car. The entire train was purple, and it also carried into the interior. I know this was unique because many of the locals were hurrying to take pictures as well.

Once we got to Hiroshima (which took a while because of a few transfers we had to make) we were ready to head to lunch. We headed to Nagata-ya. It was right at the end of a busy shopping area so I was worried I had been “tourist duped”, but there was a long line of mostly locals, so I felt a lot better. Nagata-ya serves Hiroshimayaki, which is a sort of grilled pancake of soba noodles, eggs, pork, kimchi, and all kinds of other goodness.

Yum.

After lunch we walked over to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

Hiroshima is a huge city (~1 million residents). It has fully recovered (in size) from the devastation of the first atomic bomb during WWII in 1945. Whether or not it has affected the psyche of the people, I am not certain. I can say that I felt a tiny bit apprehensive about being an American in a place where 140,000 people were killed in a single act, but time seems to heal all things, and everyone was extremely kind and generous (as always in Japan).

Right next to the park is the “A- Bomb Dome”, which was right next to the point where the bomb detonated (approximately 600 meters above ground). Because of its position, this was one of the few buildings that partially survived the bomb. Over time, the people of Japan decided to preservice it in its post-bombing state for all time. Many wanted it torn down because it is a reminder of bad memories.

Across the water is the Peace Memorial Park and Museum, which are dedicated to trying to encourage the planet Earth to learn from Hiroshima and never drop another atomic bomb.

We entered the museum and I spent an hour browsing and reading about the bombing.

Right inside the door is a clock that measures the number of days since the bombing, and the number of days since the last nuclear test was performed. While we were present, the second number sat at a disappointing 55. Thanks North Korea…

Forgive the pictures of pictures, but I think they show the magnitude of the incident quite well.

First, you get a view of what Hiroshima looked like in 1945 before the bomb was dropped. It is clearly a well-developed and vibrant city. It entirely escaped air raids during earlier stages of war, specifically as it was one of the primary targets for the A-Bomb.

The US dropped the first atom bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

As you walk forward through the museum, you see the result.

80,000 people were killed immediately, and another 60,000 would die by the end of the year from injuries sustained or from radiation poisoning. The museum makes no efforts to guilt anyone over what occurred. It does make a strong effort to promote disarmament of nuclear weapons.

The hydrogen bomb, developed later, is as much as 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

I hope the world never sees this happen again.

On a lighter note, we trudged back through the rain and returned back to Kyoto for dinner. I also picked up some tasty Japanese snacks.

Cheers!