Hiroshima

*Disclaimer: Please excuse the poor punctution and typos as I am writing this post on a messed up Japanese keyboard and I can"t figure out where the friggin" apostrophe is...

Lydia and I arrived in Hiroshima this afternoon and started our sightseeing right away. After all, time is money, the early bird gets the worm, and so on and so forth.

Our hostel is conveniently located near Peace Memorial Park and other A-Bomb sights, so we decided to go for a little stroll. Hiroshima (or at least the small part we've seen so far) seems to be a lot more laid-back than Tokyo. Walking through the park was very relaxing, but also humbling when you think about what happened there. Among all the statues and monuments that we saw, peace seemed to be a recurring theme, for obvious reasons.

We stumbled upon what I assumed was a peace demonstration. I couldn"t understand a word that man was saying, but there were a bunch of people wearing shirts that said "No to War."

The Aioi Bridge. This is what the pilots used as a target when they dropped the bomb.

Children"s Peace Memorial. In the middle is a statue of Sadako whose claim to fame involves a thousand paper cranes. I loved this story as child. If you haven't heard of it, please read it and prepare to bawl your eyes out.

Some of many, many, many paper cranes that have been left in front of various statues in the park.

A mound of ashes from the victims of the bombing

And now, in an attempt to end this post on a lighter note, here is a pcitures of me and Lydia enjoying the first piece of fruit (close enough anyway) that we've had since arriving in Japan. Oh Vitamin C, how we have missed you.