June 16, 2023

We had a beautiful sunset when we left Kagoshima yesterday. We left 3 hours late due to a mechanical issue but the captain is planning to make up as much time as he can to have only a slightly late arrival into Hiroshima.

Here are some photos of our sail in to the harbor. We arrived only 30 minutes after our scheduled arrival. Well done, captain!

Hiroshima means “wide island”. It is best known as the first city in history to be targeted by a nuclear weapon when the United states Army Air Force dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 AM on August 6, 1945 near the end of World War II. The oleander is the official flower of the city because it was the first to bloom again after the explosion of the atomic bomb in 1945. The city government continues to advocate the abolition of all nuclear weapons and the Mayor of Hiroshima is the president of “Mayors for Peace”, an international mayoral organization mobilizing cities and citizens worldwide to abolish and eliminate nuclear weapons.

Today we took a taxi to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Peace Memorial Park. We visited the park in 2019 but we were on a tour and it didn’t include the museum. Admission was only 100 yen for us old people – which was $.71 in US money. The museum is a very sobering history of Hiroshima both before and after the atomic bombing.It tells the story mostly through the people’s lives, those who died and those who survived.The museum calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons and eternal world peace. There were many pictures and artists renderings – too many to capture it all for this blog. But it is worth looking on their website. Very sad.

The weather was pretty perfect today – no rain and in the 70s. So it was a nice day to be in the park after we explored the museum.

The park was constructed to make the whole neighborhood of the Nakajima district into a symbol of everlasting peace and a recreation area for citizens. The park was renovated into its current design in preparation of the 50th anniversary of the bombing. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony is held here on August 6 every year.

The Cenotaph for the Victims of the Atomic Bomb (formally known as the Memorial Monument for Hiroshima, City of Peace) was built in 1952. Inside lay registries which contain the names of all the known victims of the bombing, regardless of nationality. Names are added to these registries each year.

There was a special exhibition about the Hiroshima War Orphans Foster Home. The bombing deprived many children of their families.
The exhibition describes the history of the home and the life of Gishin Yamashita who introduced the legislation, made contributions and was engaged in the operation of the home. It accepted a total of roughly 170 children until 1953 when operation of the foster home was transferred to the City of Hiroshima.

These paper cranes are made by people around the world and brought to Hiroshima as a symbol of peace. There are thousands on display here.

We had a scheduled departure for Kobe at 4:45 so we took the shuttle bus back to the ship and watched the drummers on the pier serenade us before we left. And we were delayed again today – a bigger ship had to leave before us. It was a huge car carrier.