Hiroshima peace day

On Aug. 6th, we had annual ceremony for the A-bomb victims.

Lots of people from all over the country attended. This year, when I woke up it was raining which was fairly unusual for this day. Most of time, it's sunny and very hot with annoying buzz of cicadas.
But once the ceremony started, the sun appeared just like every year.

I watched the ceremony on TV and offered a silent prayer. "The peace declaration" by the mayor of Hiroshima city and "The commitment to peace" by the children's representatives were very moving.

In the afternoon I went to the peace memorial park to float lanterns on Motoyasu- river.
A number of people jumped into the river and died in thirst and burnt.
To comfort the spirits of those people, we write messages on lanterns and float.

It was absolutely beautiful as you can see in the picture above.

Seeing those lanterns with message and also tons of people who were praying for peace, I felt a huge something gather together in this one place. I thought with this huge power,world peace may come true one day.


Thank you very much for those who joined our peace campaign by folding paper cranes.
I did place your paper cranes near the Sadako Sasaki statue in the park.
They can't keep it forever but in stead,they gave me a piece of paper to write about who made this, what's our wish and so on. They will keep our name in the permanent file.

(Hope you can see "J-hoppers Hiroshima" on the tag!)