Today was the 61st anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I decided that since this is my last year, I should attend the memorial ceremonies in the morning. My first year, I’d just gotten here and hadn’t even visited Hiroshima yet — I think I watched the event on TV. Last year was the big 60th anniversary. It was obviously going to be a bit too big an event for my taste, so I decided to do the night-time lantern ceremony (where candle lanterns with messages written on them are floated down the river). It was quite pretty and moving. But I hadn’t attended the main memorial in the morning yet, so I got up early this morning to catch the 6:48 train into the city.

Even getting up that early was cutting things a bit close. The ceremony was to start at 8:00, I arrived at Peace Park at 8:15, just as the bell was tolling the time of the bomb blast. Most people stopped to observe a minute of silence, so I stood there reflecting on it, within sight of the A-Bomb Dome. I then made my way over to the area that the ceremony was taking place. As expected, it was very crowded but I managed to find a spot in the back with a good view (at least via 10x zoom). I’d missed the laying of the wreaths, but had arrived in time to catch Prime Minister Koizumi’s speech. One of the other speeches was delivered for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who obviously couldn’t attend because he is currently busy trying to make peace. Anyways, I think this is the first time I’ve seen a world leader type person like this.

After the ceremony was over, I managed to snap this pic of Koizumi leaving in his motorcade. Then I wandered around the park for a bit, observing the various goings on, from survivors recounting their experiences, protesters and petition passers, groups praying for peace and JHS students snagging tourists (and myself) to attempt to ask their opinion of things peace related for school projects.

One of the odder things I saw was a group that I assume were high school students (judging from their age and wearing a school blazer — though green was a color I’d never seen before). They were lined up along the river bank on the far side of the island the park is on. The members were chanting something, holding their right hand out as if to push something away. There were 2-3 of the group helping the rest along by chanting on bullhorns. NO CLUE who they were or what they were attempting, but at least they weren’t the right wingers in black vans (think I might have seen them outside the park when I was rushing there).

I’d considered attending the night-time events, but by noon I was feeling rather dead, probably as a result of getting up so early and the crazy heat and humidity (at 8am it was already pretty bad). So I did some shopping and headed home a few hours later.

Related Posts