14/10/09

Day 9 - Hiroshima - 'Hiroshima Castle, A-Bomb Site & Paper Crane Exhibition'

Today we saw even more turtles before breakfast at a little pond around the corner from our hotel. They were sun-baking on rocks and two turtles were swimming and playing with each other.

After breakfast we went to Hiroshima Castle which was 5 stories tall. In the gardens they were preparing for a festival so there were many tents, flowers, stalls and work men. There was also some very noisy kids on a school excursion in the castle. On the way out they were practicing their English words "Hello" and "Goodbye" with us! It was a great view of the city from the top of the castle.

We then visited a paper crane exhibition which included 13 million paper cranes! This was enough to fill five really large rooms. In some rooms the cranes were in piles bigger than Mum and Dad! We spent an hour making our own paper cranes and it was really fun, and I also learnt about Sadako Sasaki.

Accross the road was the A-Bomb dome, eternal flame and Peace Memorial. While we were there Mum was approached by a Japanese school girl on excursion. Her assignment involved asking a foreigner a number of questions about Japan in English. Mum also got a photo taken with the Japanese girl for her assignment and the girl gave Mum a paper crane to stick on her top.