Hiroshima

It's tough to explain what a moving experience it was visting Hiroshima and the vast Peace Memorial Park built around the atomic bomb ground zero. I really could go on and on about it (and kind of do in this post). The park is filled with memorials to those who died and there is a large museum where we learned not only about the mass devastation that the atomic bomb caused, but also the events leading up to the bomb being dropped, why Hiroshima was picked among other cities, and details behind the creation of the technology and the political atmosphere at the time.... the experience was truly moving.

The memorial museum was very well thought out and began telling the story at the late 1800's where Japan was entering war with east Asia. From there it steps you through the events leading up to and following the A-bombing including the role Japan itself played. The museum included a lot of self reflection where they were trying to communicate learned lessons from the past to make a difference for the future. Ultimately they knew they started the battle, but having experienced the devistaion of atomic bombs first hand, they are making a plea to the world to never again initiate a nuclear war.















Seeing the gruesome details, photos and accounts of the victims was more emotional than either one of us anticipated. We saw grown men crying as he stood over a display of children's clothes that had been burned to the kid's bodies from the extreme heat. Many people who were not close enough to be killed by the initial blast, were still exposed to the extreme heat which melted their skin and led to their death within hours.

There were countless stories depicted in the museum but one particular memorial was dedicated to a large group of students who were pulled out of school that day by the Japanese government to create a fire lane through the middle of the city (in support of war operations). They were all killed as they worked almost directly under the bomb's detonation point.

The amount of devistation such a small man-made device brings is incomprehendable. An entire city was leveled in 3 seconds, and tens of thousands of people were dead in the blink of an eye.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki are real examples of the catastrophe on human life a nuclear war brings and reaffirms my hope that the world never sees this devistation again.

The park and museum were more places where many school kids were visiting on field trips and we had more opportunities to briefly talk to them so they could practice English. They would each hand us a crane they had folded. It was here where we learned why cranes are given as gifts.

"They were originally decorative origami however they are folded as a wish for peace in many countries around the world. This connection between paper cranes and peace can be traced back to a young girl named Sadako Sasaki, who died from leukemia ten years after the atomic bombing.

Sadako was two years old when she was exposed to the A-bomb (lived 2 kilometers from ground zero). She had no apparent injuries and grew into a strong and healthy girl. However, nine years later in the fall when she was in sixth grade of elementary school (1954), she suddenly developed signs of an illness. In February the following year she was diagnosed with leukemia and was admitted to the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital. There is an ancient Japanese story that promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the gods. Believing that folding a thousand paper cranes herself would help her recover, she kept folding them until the end, but on October 25, 1955, after an eight-month struggle with the disease, she passed away.

Sadako's death triggered a campaign to build a monument to pray for world peace and peaceful repose of the many children killed by the atomic bomb."

A book was written about her story, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. In the years following the bomb there was a large increase in leukemia and many other diseases from radiation exposure, especially among children including children in utero.

The park has a large children's memorial and we arrived at it, a group of kids had prepared a song to dedicate to the children who were killed in the bombing. At the top of the memorial is a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane.

There is one building skeleton left standing in Hiroshima today. It was the closest building to the hypocenter that wasn't completely leveled and stands today as a reminder of the city's destruction.

You can see the building here in a picture taken shortly after the boming.

BEFORE:

AFTER: The large Peace Memorial park today covers a large part of the land in the center of the city between the two rivers.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Kyoto, Japan

Our last stop on this adventure is Japan. We are flying in and out of Tokyo and are using rail passes to head south on the bullet trains to Kyoto and Hiroshima. We are currently at a 15 hour time difference between Japan and Colorado.

We had read that the Japanese very much value their customs and traditions and ensure they are passed on to future generations. This is very evident walking through the cities, even with populations in the millions the cities are incredibly clean and everyone is very respectful of each other. Nobody leaves trash in the road or gum on the sidewalks, the taxi drivers wear a suit and tie and keep meticulously clean cars. Bus drivers wear a white shirt, tie, and white gloves.

Having said that there are many beautiful Japanese temples and gardens we found in Kyoto that are protected. Because the temples were tourist attractions it was really great because school kids visiting the temples would come up to us and ask if we would have a conversation with them so they could practice their English. Often times they would give you a paper crane that they folded themselves as a thank you for taking time to chat with them. We learned that paper cranes are a sign of peace.

More about Hiroshima and Tokyo in the next few days!

Olympic Park, Beijing

We also visited the Olympic Park in Beijing. The Aqua Cube and the Bird's Nest are the ones that are easy to spot. It's still quite an active area.

Beijing Subway

Beijing is a big city, about 20 million people, and many of them use the subway to get around. We read on many travel websites to not take Line 1 during rush hour because it runs through the heart of the city and has the biggest crowds...but our hotel was along Line 1 and we wanted the local experience so we took it anyway. It was one of the more uncomfortable and smelly parts of the trip. Social etiquette was our largest culture shock.....people will freely cough or sneeze on you, although it could also be they're packed in so tight they can't move their hand to cover their mouth.

Beijing, China - The Great Wall

We had a few things on our itinerary for our quick trip to China, the biggest was The Great Wall. We took a day tour that fed us a traditional Chinese lunch, a tour of a jade and silk factory and to the Heavenly Way Entrance to the Ming Tombs.

We took a tour an hour outside of the city to avoid the mass amounts of tourists and it was well worth it. We were able to freely climb the wall without being in anyone's way. We climbed an incredibly steep area that went into an unmaintained portion of the wall where the vegetation was overgrown and the wall has deteriorated. It was a surreal experience to actually be there. In that area the steep hike just to get up to the wall is about 45 minutes so they offer a ski lift to get up to the wall and an alpine slide to come back down.

The Forbidden City & Tiananmen Square

We visited Beijing's Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square which were both very impressive. It was a hot and sunny day and very crowded, mostly with us and other Chinese visitors.

The girl in green was making an attempt to pick-pocket me in that picture. The group was working a scheme where a couple was posing and was trying to get as many people as possible to pose with them as Grandpa took the picture. They seemed like real tourists at that point but we saw them later and they were just thieves. They didn't get anything!

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Between Khao Lak and Beijing we had a 5 hour layover in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The KLIA express train takes you to the city center in 30mins...so rather than hang at the airport for five hours we jumped on the train to see the city.

We didn't have too much time to walk around but one highlight was the Petronas towers which were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004 until they were surpassed by Taipei 101, but they remain the tallest twin buildings in the world.

The first seven-ish floors of one of the towers is a huge shopping mall which we walked through and had lunch at a great little sandwich shop by the name of Subway.