Rainy day here in Hiroshima, but at least it wasn’t black rain. We took a walking tour with Kozo, a retired businessman who was raised here. He took us to places we missed when we concentrated on the Peace Memorial Park yesterday, and then we went back to his apartment and he showed us how to prepare and cook Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki.
We came across some remarkable stories of survival. In the cenotaph that is hollowed out with a view of the Peace Flame and epicenter Dome, there is a crypt that has the name of all the survivors of the bombing that have passed away.
Kozo told us that every year the crypt is opened and in a ceremony the list of survivors who have died is updated. Not far from the cenotaph is the bell monument to Sadako Sasaki who was two-years-old when the bomb hit. Nine years later she died of leukemia. She is at the top of the monument with a boy and girl at the side. As she was dying she made a goal of folding 1000 origami cranes. A metal crane inside the monument rings a bell, and behind the monument are glass cases filled with colorful origami cranes made by visiting school children the world over.
Across a bridge is the rebuilt Hiroshima Fuel Hall that was 170 meters from the epicenter of the blast. Eizo Nomura was in the building with 37 other workers all of who died when the bomb hit. Eizo was in the basement at the time and survived.
When he emerged from the basement a person lay burnt on the bridge and on the river there were spouts of water like reverse tornadoes created by the uprush of the bomb’s thermal cloud. The rest of the city was flattened, the few remaining structures in flames. Somehow, with no visible landmarks, he made it home to find that his family hadn’t survived. He lived until he was 84.
On our way to visit the Hiroshima Castle (destroyed by the bomb but rebuilt twenty years ago), we passed some ginkgo trees that weathered the blast.
The castle was part of the Edo-era construction boom in castles that were the result of the Toyotomi vs. Tokugawa struggle for centralized control.
On the grounds of the castle is the Hiroshima Gokoku shrine commemorating to those of who have died in war. Kozo went to a shrine like this after his children were born.
Hankawa Elementary School was the last stop on our tour. It was the closest school to the epicenter of the blast (410 meters). Most of the 400 students were outside in the schoolyard. They along with ten teachers died. Imori and here friend Kazuko Aohara survived because they were still inside the school changing shoes when the bomb detonated.
In the basement of the school there is a relief map of what Hiroshima looked like when the bomb dropped.
The red ball signifies where the bomb detonated 600 meters above the ground.
We were given a tiny origami crane when we left the school.