Iwakuni and Hiroshima

Hiroshima

Very humbling experience for all of us. We visited the museum where we learned the bomb exploded in the air and obliterated about 2 km radius and many exposed to radiation burns. One guy living in the basement of the Hiroshima Dome building that is still standing survived until he was 80 years old.

 One girl named Sadako Sasaki was only two when the bomb went off. She had little to no side effects until she was nine years old and was diagnosed with Leukemia. She had read that if you fold 1,000 Oragami paper cranes you can be healed, however she died before she was able to make them all. Some kids from her elementary school decided to memorialize her by making more paper cranes. It eventually led to a physical memorial in her name and many more that people can donate. The boxes are filled with groups of 1,000 paper cranes from all over the world.

 The Hiroshima dome that was left standing after the bomb.

These other pictures are from the Hiroshima Castle. Also a Samurai headquarters.

 

Pictures in the castle museum showing what was left of it after the A-bomb hit.

 An A-bomb tree, still alive.

Kintai Bridge

Kids loved the Kintai bridge, not because of how cool it looks, but because it was an awesome place to place tag on the rocks below it with water between most of them. Everyone had wet feet by the time we were done.

 We also drove up to the top of an island and were able to see the area all around. We played steal the flag and saw this old Japanese house built up there, there was even a car where there was no road. We really wanted to know the history of that little place.