Sun, 28 Sep 2014 07:04:03 +0000 Jayne http://www.bucketlisttraveller.com/?p=100 Thursday we visited the Nagasaki Peace Park and Museum, and the site of the atomic bomb ground zero. The peace park has various statues, each with a story and several waterfalls. Water is a theme at the park and many people leave opened bottles of water at the foot of the memorials in memory of those who were burned and died begging for water. There were many schoolchildren there and we watched as they paid their respects, singing a song and placing strings of hundreds of brightly coloured cranes at the bomb site. The cranes are a symbol of peace and there are thousands of them in the museum and in the park. These schoolchildren were having their photo taken in the peace park by a very cranky photographer who was not amused that they were smiling and waving to us! The statue in the background shows a seated man pointing to the sky, – to ‘the horror about to come’.
Just a few of the many paper cranes throughout the museum and park.
The museum if filled with objects that survived the atomic bomb and stories of the event. The bomb dropped at Nagasaki was 2.5 times the size of the one at Hiroshima. The temperature at ground zero was over 9000 degrees. The temperature of the sun is 6000 degrees. It’s a sobering place to visit but Thomas, had a lovely way of explaining the history respectfully and lightening the mood with jokes. He was five years old when the bomb was dropped and remembers hearing the bombers flying over. His wife had made paper cranes for each of us to keep. We came back to the ship for lunch and then walked around for a while on our own. We visited the oldest Catholic church in Japan, a small wooden church at the top of a hill and very steep steps. At one point the shoguns banned Christianity which the Portuguese had introduced. The shoguns did not want the people converted so they ceased trading with Portugal and started trading with the Dutch. The Christians in the area went into hiding in the area where the old church is.
We come back to Nagasaki again and we will be visiting the Mitusubishi shipyards, which is where the Diamond Princess was built. It’s a much bigger, more modern place than I imagined.