Nagasaki, Japan

Monday, February 25, 2019       Nagasaki, Japan

                      Our ship arrived at noon, making for a short day to see some sights.

                            We had to pass through customs since we were in a new country, Japan.

Nagasaki has a scenic harbor.

                                       The Japanese Military were present in the harbor.

 Larry bought 2 tram tickets for 1000 Japanense Yen…approximately $10.00 US. This allowed us to ride the tram all day. 

A Japanese license plate. Japan took the writing from China and added additional simplified characters to complete their alphabet.

             We walked for about 15 minutes to catch the blue line to the Nagasaki Peace Park. 

                      We enjoyed seeing some women dressed in Japanese traditional clothing.

              The statues were donated from countries who had casualties during the war.

                                                                The Peace Statue

Set atop a tall hill that contained several statues from artists around the world that exuded the theme of the park….pursue peace. An atomic bomb exploded on August 9, 1945 right here on the grounds of this park. The park was a testament to the victims.

Although the fountain and the peace statue were being refurbished, Larry and I were ecstatic to meet a survivor,  Inosuke Haysaki, who was miraculously saved by his boss sending him off to work in a different area in the Mitsubishi factory.

 He had just entered the area when the bomb exploded, throwing him behind a big concrete pillar which blocked the heat rays and the blast. He stood by proudly near a statue that contained numerous flowers to share his story and his fear of the Atomic bombs representing the Nagasaki Foundation for the Promotion of Peace.

                                         We stopped in the epic center where the bomb hit.

Colorful Paper Peace Cranes hung around many of the statues.

We visited the Atomic Bomb Center Museum full of pictures and videos that captured life in Nagasaki before and after the blast. 

There was a life size model of the bomb. I'm sure the bombs built today are much, much larger.

Massive devastation!

 73, 884 citizens perished while 74,909 people were injured. Many of the survivors died early in life due to the radiation exposure that caused various kinds of cancers. 

           The pictures in the museum were quite a contrast to what we saw while on the tram

The most remarkable information that I gathered from the museum was a wall of mushrooms displayed under each year since the bomb was developed. Hundreds and hundreds of nuclear bombs have been exploded since the first experimental explosion in 1944. The most recent were 2 in 2016. This nuclear nightmare MUST stop! Why can’t we humans all just get along together for the betterment of mankind?

                              I think this was the first sunny day that we have had since we left the US!