Hiroshima Peace Museum

Today was a compelling day. It was a day after the 59th Anniversary of the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima. It was the cheapest entrance fee that I had to pay, only 50 cents. The overall feeling that the museum posessed was really overwhelming. It was separated into a couple of sections. The first section had a collection of paintings, the second section was of the aftermath, and the last section had a lot of information detailing the effects of radioactivity.
I stayed in there for a little over 2 hours, YYchi and CFka were at the end waiting for me because I was walking really slow. I took a lot of pictures of the place and all the artifacts, and bunch of other things. Really it was something amazing. There were so many stories that were told and how tragic the event really was. The overall message was to dismantle the nuclear arms programs around the world. They had a picture before and after the bomb was dropped and really you could see the difference.

It was like in the Movie Spiderman 2. The fusion of the sun got out of control and they said it would destroy half the city, well in this case, it did. The power of the sun is a force that shouldn't be reckoned with. The area around where the bomb was dropped was clear except for 3 or 4 buildings that still stood. Many students were killed because they were assigned to go there to help clean up other areas that were destroyed previously by other bombing raids. The force and heat melted people instantously. The mushroom cloud that formed about 1 mile up caused the clouds to pick up the sut from all the radiation. And minutes afterward, if the people were not affected, they would have acid rain down on them. The effects looked incredibly horrible. They illustrated exactly what would occur if you got hit with acid rain, as well as what happened to the people burned by the fireball.

Interesting yet gruesome. After the museum we walked over to the Peace Dome, which was actually left standing after the bomb. It's a perpetual reminder of the tragedy that will be preserved forever to let everyone remember all the lives that were lost and why we need to stop with all the nuclear arms. Each year, the mayor writes a letter to address this issue, but every year, the rest of the world ignores it. It's very sad that nothing is being done with it. The non-proliferation treaty says that the top 5 countries that already have the technology can keep it and no one else. But it's unfair because if they have it, other countries would do anything to get it because it still shows importance to WMD like that. Recently Pakistan and India have gone to nuclear status and that's a very volitle situation.

Maybe I should change the subject. After we were there, we went to get some lunch. We walked back to the shopping street area. Shopped some more, even though I didn't buy anything. We then took the train back to the Station and got picked up by CFka's Dad and then we had a BBQ. I couldn't eat that much which was really a shame. They made the best steak that I have EVER eaten in my life. They dethroned Chef Taka. Although when I go back to San Diego, I will go eat there again.... hehe. Really it was a very good BBQ. I was happy, and ate a lot even though I still felt sick. I ate as much as I could.

After dinner we played with fireworks like every Japanese family out there. It's the thing to do. When that was all finished we went back to the house and this time I joined them in their room. I was doing a lot of internet stuff like checking e-mail and planning for my trip the next day. I did a lot of planning and getting all the schedules for going to Fukuoka, and Shikoku, and finding a hotel in Nagoya. It took a really long time, and I should have done it earlier, but didn't. I felt bad because I was keeping everyone awake when they were about to sleep. So i just gave up and just went to sleep. I had most of the trip planned so I was in good shape.