I am currently living in Japan and was able to visit the Genbaku Dome on a trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima this past weekend. I was very glad to go as it is a place that evokes a lot of thought. The thing that made me smile the most was a young woman sitting on the steps on the other side of the river with her guitar and singing her heart out. It gave me a feeling of hope that even at a place where the effect of war is so obvious you can see life continuing to move on.

I would recommend going to the Genbaku Dome and memorial part to anyone who has the chance. The museum on the site is also filled with many interesting artifacts from the time. Make sure you do your research about the the events that led up to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki before you go to the museum. There is a lot of very informative information about the building and growing of Hiroshima from its humble beginnings to being used as a port full of factories for the war effort, but the information becomes more and more biased as the history presented gets closer to the dates of the bombings.