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Published: April 5th 2006
A-Bomb Dome
Formerly the Hiroshima Prefectural Industry Promotion Hall.Woke up at 4:30am this morning - on my own accord thankfully - to catch the 6:00am bus for the 3-hour ride to Hiroshima. "Hooray for nice weather!" I thought to myself as I looked out the bus window, enjoying the mountain scenery on this very crisp and clear morning. Denise, her visual senses overwhelmed from such glorious sunlight, promptly fell asleep to prevent her eyeballs from exploding at the rare sight of clear blue sky.
Given the balmy weather today, it's kind of odd that the highlight of the drive were the tunnels. We passed through at least a dozen, most of which were over a kilometer in length, and the longest being slightly more than 3.5km! I guess when 80% of the country is mountainous, your options of where to place roads can be limited.
I'm sure you're all familiar with August 6, 1945 at 8:15am and the tragic loss of some 140,000 lives as a result of the first Atomic Bomb ever dropped, so there's no point in giving a history lesson. I will, however, tell you that the feeling of that day weighs heavily on your mind as soon as you acknowledge that you're actually
A-Bomb Dome
With the Fountain of Peace in the foreground. in Hiroshima. But the Japanese people don't want you to feel sorry for them, and they don't ask for your pity. Instead, their goal is to remind you of the destruction and to ensure that it never happens again. I can't help but feel that had this happened in Canada or the USA, to this day you'd still hear people bitch and complain to no end about how some kids dads best-friends uncles second cousin-twice-removed saw coverage on TV and is now mentally scarred and needs psychiatric help.
Obviously, Denise and I toured all the relevant sites, namely the A-Bomb Dome (officially known as the Hiroshima Prefectural Industry Promotion Hall), the Peace Park, and the
Peace Memorial Museum. The website contains info on all sites regarding the A-Bomb, and I encourage you to read through. Although, it's really something to see in person, as the emotional effect is tough to convey through a computer screen. We took several pictures of the Dome and the park, but I chose not to take pictures at the Memorial Hall and Museum - for some reason it felt inappropriate to do so.
To lighten the mood, my good friend Chilly Willy made his first
A-Bomb Dome
Looking across the river from the Peace Park. appearance in Japan. My trusty stuffed penguin for almost 25 years, Chilly Willy has traveled the globe with me, seeing numerous world famous sights such as the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, and the Golden Gate Bridge (just to name a few). I took Chilly Willy from my backpack and photographed his visit to the A-Bomb Dome amid stares from curious onlookers. For the record, Chilly Willy is for the anti-nuclear movement as penguins (especially stuffed ones!) are prone to radiation sickness and strange genetic mutations.
When late afternoon hit, we decided it was time to check into our hotel and freshen up before dinner. So we fetched our bags from the bus center (upon arrival we stowed them in lockers) and decided to hail a cab for the short ride to our hotel. We jump in, I show our driver the map and point to the hotel, he says "Hai!" and off we go...in the wrong bloody direction! We stop our airheaded chauffeur from driving us to China, and hand him directions to the hotel, complete with a new compass and a smack upside the head. When he finally drops us off, Denise - in her
Up Close
In restorations, the goal is to keep the A-Bomb Dome looking exactly as it did the day the Little Boy hit. most impolite Japanese - tells the cabbie that it's a lot of money for what was supposed to be a short trip, and we are not paying the indicated fare. Much head-bowing and apologizing later, we exit the car paying roughly half the amount.
I'm very thankful Denise was present to handle the situation. If I was alone, it would've quickly escalated to nothing but monkey anger...or a sumo battle on the sidewalk. One of the two, but it would definitely
not have been pretty!
Luckily, the remainder of our day was a little less eventful, and we got to sleep in
real beds, not on the floor! Them big cities can be real fancy sometimes.
Oh, and monkey anger...that's just a bunch of yelling and screaming and the throwing of poo.
Camille & Denise
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Mom
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Great Trip
Read thru the Peace Memorial Museum website -awesome and somewhat sobering. CW looks inappropriately happy at the Hypocenter but I guess he's just thrilled to have emerged unscathed. Love to both.