Folded Memories
To fully understand Japan's culture, I always take a trip to memorial sites to comprehend the influences behind modern day Japan. It's definitely an eye-opener and sometimes it can be heavy on the heart. If there's one event in Japan's history that stood against history's testaments, it would be the devastation from the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. The stronghold left of the Genbaku Dome still stands on the side of the Motoyasu River which serves as a peace reminder to the world. It symbolizes the strength of Japan and how they managed to recover and rebuild their city from the ground up even after great devastation.
Hiroshima's culture, history, and architecture is what makes this city so nostalgic. My favorite part of the city that remains true to Hiroshima heritage are the cable cars that run along the city. You'll notice the horizons of the buildings are flooded with cables and wires to run the cable cars - it reminded me of the streets of San Francisco.
We paid our respects at the Children's Peace Park where thousands of paper origami cranes were hung. The crane represents peace and for each crane folded, it is counted as a wish to sustain that peace. There's a story of a young girl named Sadako Sasaki who was exposed to the A-bomb and developed leukemia 10 years after. While battling her illness in the hospital, she folded paper cranes in hopes that she would recover. Unfortunately, after 8 months of struggling, Sadako passed away. Ever since then, paper cranes were folded in her memory and gained symbolism of peace.
Upon arriving at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, there's a lantern that is lit during ceremonies to set the spirits of the victims free. This section of the park used to be a busy commercial district but was blown away by the atomic bomb.
After our tour through the museum, we made our way to Hiroshima Castle. This castle is unlike ones I've seen around Japan, it seemed more modern and the building material looked newer. When the atomic bomb dropped in 1945, it demolished the castle to rubble. In 1958, a replica of the old one was reconstructed, which is the one you see below.
Now, the moment I've been waiting for, we finally had a chance to try Hiroshima's famed Hiroshima-yaki. The line took us 30 minutes to get two seats at the bar but it was well worth it!
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