On May 26th everyone in the program visited the Memorial Park at Hiroshima. while we were there we were guided by some volunteers who were in mainly high school. They wanted to improve their english speaking skills and they explained to us about the nuclear bomb and how it impacted their country and what to do moving forward. While we were walking around the Memorial Park we saw the place where they pray and commemorate the people who passed away from the bombing. We also saw the place where the original atomic bomb landed. It was in a dome-like structure and you can see it in the back of the photo attached to this blog post. They explained how originally the bomb was supposed to land on the bridge near the dome but it ended up landing on the dome. Before the explosion took place the building was mainly used for keeping knowledge almost like a library that had some historical emphasis but it all disappeared when the bombing took place. At the center of the Memorial Park, there is a fire that is supposed to continue burning until there are no more nuclear bombs in the world. It’s a representation of the tragedy Hiroshima experienced and they don’t want anybody else to have to go through what they went. They also have running water as it symbolizes a place for the spirits to swim in as a lot of the survivors after the bombing were severely burned and were looking for water locations to cool down in. Another place we visited had a statue of a young girl with a paper crane. Around the young girl, there were so many different almost rope-like structures of paper cranes that were attached to each other. In Hiroshima, a paper crane represents peace, hope, and recovery. Sadako Sasaki was a girl who was exposed to radiation when she was an infant and was diagnosed with leukemia and passed away later on when she was around 12 years old. She’s a representation of how people still suffered from the result of the attack many years later. The guides told us most of the time it was leukemia that affected the people who survived the attack. Overall it was an interesting trip where I learned a lot and it opened up a new perspective on Hiroshima. The guides were super nice and they were excited to talk with us and it was interesting learning from them about the memorial park and what it symbolizes. 