I didn't feel that my radiation exposure was significant enough in Nagasaki, so on the way to Tokyo my second time I stopped over in Hiroshima for a few hours of exploring and picture taking. Due to my short stay in Hiroshima, I don't have many pictures or much to say about the town, as I saw very little of it. The one place I was rather impressed with and did spend most of my time at was the museum they had there in remembrance of the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan, which completely wiped out the flat city of Hiroshima. There was plenty of information offered, as well as a beautiful, though somewhat frightening, art exhibit displaying works dealing with the bombing and its aftermath. Outside the museum was a beautiful park, where the famous crane display can be found. This display began with a young girl who survived the bomb but was badly wounded. She began folding origami cranes and connecting them together in a long chain. Eventually this chain caught on and other people began adding to the chain. Now there are thousands upon thousands of paper cranes connected together and left in the center of the park for all to see, a call to the end of the use of nuclear weapons. The only other site worth mentioning is directly across a small river from the park, and possibly one of the few remaining buildings that partially survived the blast: the Bomb Dome. I believe it was some sort of industrial development government building, and the underlying framework of the dome adorning the top of the building still stands intact, although I wouldn't be surprised if it has been reinforced over the years to preserve it in its post-bombing state. It is certainly one of the most visual reminders in all of Japan of the first use of the atomic bomb as a weapon of mass destruction.

Pictures of all the places mentioned above can be viewed by clicking on the pictures link below: