Hiroshima

The next day we traveled to Hiroshima to visit the Peace Park. It began with a relaxing 3-hr ferry ride among numerous mostly uninhabited small islands in the Seto Inland Sea that separates Shikoku Island from the main island and Hiroshima.

The Peace Museum describes the history and politics leading to dropping the "A-bomb" and was relentless in describing the subsequent devastation, and then the gradual rebuilding of the city and its commitment to become a model for world peace and the extinction of nuclear weapons. Our spirits were lifted by the various memorials such as the 1000 cranes, the Peace Bell, the Atomic Memorial Mound (which contains the ashes of about 70,000 victims), the A-Bomb Dome, which partially survived the blast and stands in memory, and the Flame of Peace, which will only be extinguished when all nuclear weapons have been destroyed.