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August 12, 2005
Hiroshima
It was 60 years ago last Saturday that the Japanese city of Hiroshima became the first place in the world to have a nuclear weapon used against it. And this past Tuesday was the 60th anniversary of the day on which the United States dropped an even bigger atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki. There have been quite a few Hiroshima/Nagasaki-related articles in the papers over the last couple of weeks, everything from stories about memorials/anti-nuclear rallies to book reviews to an opinion piece arguing that Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb actually saved lives by preventing a potentially prolonged World War II with even greater casualties on one or both sides. But no matter what a retired Army colonel might hypothesize from the comfort of his rocking chair, there's still no getting around the sheer tragedy of these two atomic bombings and all of the horrific destruction that they caused. Especially now, when previously censored accounts of the atom-bomb aftermath have finally been published, a remarkable 60 years after the fact.
I travelled around Japan for pretty much all of February 2002, and during the very end of my trip I got to spend about 24 hours in Hiroshima. Below are a bunch of pictures that I took in and around the city's Peace Memorial Park, which is located between two conjoining rivers at almost exactly the hypocenter of the nuclear explosion.
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One of the main parts of Peace Memorial Park is the extremely sobering Peace Memorial Museum, which could probably turn a few of the most rabid neo-con war hawks against the idea of ever using nuclear weapons again. The museum has lots of profoundly moving pictures and stories and models showing what happened in great detail. It's a pretty heavy place to visit. Some historians might argue that the museum tends to ignore most of the Japanese militarism that preceded and/or indirectly led to the bombings, but I guess I didn't really feel that such debate was the point of the museum. The place mainly just tries to send a powerful "never again"-type message. Which it does quite effectively.
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After visiting the Peace Memorial Museum I walked through the park and took pictures of some of the many different memorials. Some extremely friendly Japanese schoolchildren helped deflate my expanding bubble of American guilt by asking to pose with me for a picture and then getting my name and nationality for a school assignment. I happily agreed and in return they let me snap a picture of them (above left). The striking structure behind them in the photo (also seen in the very top left photo above) is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, usually referred to as "the A-bomb dome". It was designed by a Czech architect in the early 20th century and constructed with stronger Western-type materials, which helped it become the only structure anywhere near the explosion to even partially survive the blast. The A-bomb dome has intentionally been left in ruins as a constant reminder of the bombing.
There's actually a lot more to Hiroshima than the somber Peace Memorial Park. Because it had to be entirely rebuilt after 1945, Hiroshima is a very new and modern-looking city. A short ways away from the park is the baseball stadium (above right) where the Hiroshima Toyo Carp play. I wound up going through many floors of a nearby department store looking for some Hiroshima Toyo Carp gear, but alas, it wasn't baseball season yet and there was absolutely no Toyo Carp merch to be found.
Thankfully, I had much better luck finding one of the many restaurants that serves a notable Hiroshima specialty sometimes called "hiroshima-yaki". The regional version of okonomiyaki, hiroshima-yaki is basically a tasty fried-egg-based pancake made with soba noodles and various other ingredients. Oishii!
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If you're ever in Japan with an extra day or two on your hands, definitely try and visit Hiroshima. The city is only a couple of hours from Kyoto via the bullet train, and the cozy World Friendship Centre (run by friendly peace activists/American retirees) offers very affordable accomodations with a complimentary Western-style breakfast to boot. Scrambled eggs aren't quite the same as hiroshima-yaki, but after several weeks of Japanese-style breakfasts, they totally hit the spot...
Posted by Tim at August 12, 2005 12:57 AM
Comments
okonomiyaki is the shit. carlie and i tried to make it once, and it turned out pretty well. there's a good place in manhattan that's got it for cheap. it's pretty close to other music, too, if i recall correctly.
Posted by: T.I. at August 12, 2005 01:15 PM
also, nuclear war is obviously terrible. i just realized i only commented on the small food portion of the post and not the part about the very sobering anniversary of the bombing of hiroshima. i was also able to visit the museum there, and it is very moving.
Posted by: T.I. at August 12, 2005 03:36 PM
No worries, no insensitivity was read into your initial comment or anything. Okonomiyaki is obviously a much more pleasant subject!
Posted by: Tim at August 12, 2005 04:00 PM