Somber Hiroshima offers lessons for new generations

The Atomic Bomb Dome was an arts venue before August 6, 1945 but is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the now thriving city has a population of 1.2 million people

The popular (1+ million visitors a year) Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum displays the human impact of the atomic bomb as well as life in Hiroshima before and after August 6, 1945

The first Hiroshima Castle was built in 1591 but, following the abolition of feudal domains in 1871, the castle came to serve more as a military facility; the castle was destroyed in 1945 but was rebuilt as a history museum

The book Hiroshima by John Hersey was originally featured in article form in the magazine The New Yorker, in August 1946; it is reported to have reached Tokyo, in English, at least by January 1947 and the translated version was released in Japan in 1949

The Children's Peace Monument commemorates Sadako Sasaki and the thousands of child victims of the atomic bombing; thousands of origami cranes from all over the world are offered around the monument

The bullet train had super sleek designs and some even had trendy themes like the Hello Kitty train; the trains tended to cruise along at about 200 mph and were super smooth and comfy

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is built where the city’s busiest downtown commercial and residential district was before 1945; by 1955, the population of Hiroshima had recovered to pre-war levels

View from the top of Hiroshima Castle; the history museum in the castle was interesting but most of the items were described only in Japanese

Special thought seemed to go into even the tiniest of details; the smallest yen note is 1000 which is about $10 so you end up with a ton of coins

This eucalyptus tree at Hiroshima Castle miraculously survived the bomb despite being only 740 meters from the hypocenter; the Hiroshima Carp is the popular local baseball team

I mistakenly assumed that the bomb exploded when it hit the ground but it detonated 600 meters above this spot; 70% of the city's buildings were destroyed

View from the museum to the Atomic Bomb Dome; in the center is a cenotaph holding the names of all of the people killed by the bomb and the Peace Pond

In February 1981 Pope John Paul II visited Hiroshima and made his world famous Appeal for Peace; a bronze bust of him now stands in front of the Memorial Cathedral for World Peace

The top number on the Peace Watch Tower indicates the number of days since the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima; the bottom number indicates how many days since the last nuclear test

National Peace Memorial Hall for Atomic Bomb Victims; the names and photos of victims as well as memoirs to convey the experiences of the bombing to future generations are here

Stone Lantern of Peace; the purpose of the Peace Memorial Park is to not only memorialize the victims, but also to establish the memory of nuclear horrors and advocate world peace

Painting celebrating renovations to Memorial Museum; visitors have included Gen MacArthur, Nehru, Nixon, Sartre, Pope John Paul II, Carter, Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama, Weisel, de Klerk and Gorbachev

Figure of the Merciful Goddess Kannon of Peace; the line to get into the museum was over an hour so I was able to see much of the park while others wanted to avoid the walking

Hondori Avenue shopping arcade; on May 27, 2016, Barack Obama visited Hiroshima, becoming the first sitting president of the United States to visit since the drop of the atomic bomb

Peace Clock Tower; it's amazing that the city was rebuilt given the scale of destruction but the US didn't share info it was gathering on the effects of radioactivity with the Japanese after the bombing

The Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound is where the ashes of tens of thousands of victims lie; it's very close to the hypocenter so corpses were gathered and cremated here

Peace Bell; today there are dozens of memorials and monuments, museums, and lecture halls at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, I wish our tour had had more time to explore the city

Monument Dedicated to Korean Victims and Survivors; 45,000+ Koreans were killed in the bomb blast as the Japanese used them as slaves in the war effort