Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park contains several memorials to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima including the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Most key sites are all clustered in or near Peace Memorial Park (Heiwa-koen), reachable by tram line 2 or 6 to Genbaku Domu-mae. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum The heart-wrenching Peace Memorial Museum (Heiwa Kinen Shiryokan) documents the bomb and its aftermath, complete with scale models of “before” and “after”, melted children’s tricycles and a harrowing recreation of a post-blast Hiroshima street. After numerous complaints, the museum now even describes the events leading up to the bomb in some detail. Entry costs a token ¥50. Be warned: a visit here, while by all means worthwhile, will ruin your day. Hiroshima Statue of the Atomic Bomb Children The Statue of the A-Bomb Children is perennially draped in thousands and thousands of origami paper cranes, folded by schoolchildren across Japan in commemoration of bomb victim Sadako. Dying of leukemia in 1954, she was told an old folk tale according to which anybody who folds over 1000 cranes will have her wish come true; she managed 642 before her death in 1955 at the age of twelve. Kannon draped with cranes, Hiroshima, Japan — by jpatokal (Article based on Wikitravel article by Jpatokal. Based on work by Jose Ramos and Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel. Article used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0.) |