Summer Holiday - Hiroshima

A city with History.  It's all very fine and dandy to see a city rich with history like Kyoto.  But you get hit with so many names of characters from random decades like '500AD' and 'Blangblah Dynasty'.  It's hard to put it into context and really be moved emotionally by a location you visit.  Temples become just another temple, and shrines, just another shrine.

Hiroshima's history however, only happened 60 odd years ago.  It is INCREDIBLY relevant.  A city which is now vibrant, thriving, modern and beautiful is testament to the Japanese character in itself in it's theology.  The entire city was wiped out.  And rebuilt.  And is now a living testament to the horrors of war and nuclear weaponry.

The museum itself was powerful and informative if not somewhat positively biased with its choice of words, but I am definitely sold on their city plaque:

"War is the work of man.
War is destruction of human life.
War is death.
To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future.
To remember Hiroshima, is to abhor nuclear war.
To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace."



















Hiroshima Castle