On Sunday, May 26th, we first went back to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum to receive a tour of the Peace Memorial Park the Atomic Bomb Dome from a group of local highschool students. We broke up into groups of about four and began walking around the park. One thing in particular that I found incredibly cool was the cases of paper cranes that people made and brought in. In Japan it is said that if you fold one thousand paper cranes it will bring you good luck and many people string up their paper cranes onto a chain and then hang them all up. After we saw that we walked across the Aioi Bridge around the Atomic Bomb Dome and the students talked to us about the history of the building and how orphaned children lived in it in the aftermath of the disaster. It was truly indescribable to be standing in the exact spot where the bomb went off. After visiting the Peace Memorial Park and Atomic Bomb Dome we boarded the train towards Miyajima where we spent the rest of the day. After we took the ferry to the island we began walking towards the shrine along the shore. There were a bunch of deer that had been effectively domesticated wandering around town and messing with the tourists. We then made our way through the shrine and into a small area of shops where myself along with a handful of other participants picked out souvenirs. After walking back to the main tourist area we got soft serve coffee ice cream and ate it on the beach. We also walked up to the part of the shrine that was further out towards the water, but was exposed due to low tide. Once we finished exploring we made our way back to the ferry dock to meet up with the rest of the group and made our way back to the mainland and soon after made our way back to our hotel in Hiroshima. That night we also got Okonomiyaki for dinner, which was fantastic. This was my favorite day of the whole program. We had so much free time to explore not only the shrine but the other interesting architecture around the island. It was by far some of the most beautiful buildings and views that we experienced on the trip. It was also a fantastic dinner with the professors that I highly recommend all participants take advantage of.
