You guessed it -- another weekend trip. I visited Hiroshima for the first time in mid November, and it was just as heart-wrenching as I expected. The whole city had a hushed atmosphere, and so many monuments and roads were named with "peace" as a prefix.
The Genbaku Dome (Atomic Bomb Dome) under a blue sky next to fall foliage.
A wee grasshopper joining me to gape at the dome.
The Peace Memorial for the high school students lost in the attack.
A man who lost his family in the attack protests the use and production of nuclear energy and weapons outside the dome.
A lunch break at the famous Okonomi-mura, where 24 okonomiyaki (Japanese vegetable pancake) restaraunts stand in a 5 story building.
A statue of a mother shielding her child from the bomb, in Peace Memorial Park.
Genbaku Dome peeking through the arc in Peace Memorial Park.
Although I didn't make it to a thousand cranes, I hung up my cranes with my written wish for no more suffering in the world.
Statue of Sadako, a child who died from leukemia as a result of the bomb dropping, at the Children's Peace Memorial Park.
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I didn't take pictures inside the Peace Memorial Museum, but it was the most moving part of my Hiroshima visit by far. I will definitely be visiting again to thoroughly read and look through everything -- something I believe everybody ought to do in order to understand the importance of peace among nations.
Deanna Stout
<p>Kamishibai is a Japanese style of storytelling that was popular in the first half of the 20th century. These narrators were street performers of a sort -- they read a variety of stories from a series of illustrated paper boards, entertaining the commonfolk before the emergence of television. I will blog about my experiences in Japan through a modernized version of kamishibai, telling my stories through a series of photographs and their corresponding narrations that will be similar to a novel.</p>
