Milk-chan's musings: Lab trip

Part 2 of the Hiroshima trip. Another massive photo dump post.
Our accommodation was just a few minutes away from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
We took a group photo opposite the big fountain with a view towards the park. It turned out to be out graduation photo gift :)

Aaaand we're off. We were told to just look around by ourselves.

Some details. The concrete is a rough wooden texture. I believe this building is a museum by Kenzo Tange built in the 1950s. I didn't go in though.

This is the Memorial Cenotaph. I had to look up that word. It's shaped kind of like a saddle and represents shelter.

Around the cenotaph there are plaques translating the epitaph on the cenotaph (hehehe).

The view of the museum across from the cenotaph arch.

The pool around the cenotaph. And you can see the A-Bomb Dome in the distance.

The Peace Flame. I read on Wikipedia that it will burn until there are no more nuclear bombs in the world.

Not sure, but this might be one of the Peace bells.

It had a cool origami attachment.

A Peace Bell. There are supposedly 3 of them.

Peace Clock Tower.

The A-Bomb Dome.

I think this clock counts up the time since the last nuclear test took place. It was impossible to take a good photo though.

Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall. We couldn't take pictures inside but it was a very meditative environment.

Zig-zag stairs :)

Water feature!

The water comes out the grid, I guess, and fills up the small pool at the top. The excess water runs down the ridges. I like water features ^_^

Next we took a tram to the Memorial Cathedral for World Peace. I think that's the name. It's an interesting church as it combines elements of Japanese shrines and temples with European church design. Felt very strange to me because of all the unusualness.

The entrance has a torii like gate and a little bridge (an element of japanese gardens) right before the entrance.

The ceiling of the entrance is totally like a temple ceiling.

Side prayer hall thing.

Handmade custom windows. The guide was gushing about them. I guess Japan is a land of mass produces stuff. The windows have a simple but interesting folding mechanism.

All the doors were really fancy.

I absolutely love the handles. How cute is that?!

Balcony arches.

The bell tower from the balcony.

Inside the church hall, on the light balcony.

You can see the unusual ceiling in this one. We were allowed to take photos as long as we weren't noisy or used flash.

The light balconies are to prevent direct light from entering the hall. They're also useful for maintenance.

Lunch time. I liked the huge amount of signboards on this street. We actually took too long at the church so we were an hour late. We had to skip a couple of stops, with a student yelling into the microphone as we passed them - look to your left, note the columns, look, ok gone now!

The final tour type destination. This is a school. I imagine it is massively expensive.

The sports hall.

I was told (I think) that schools in Hiroshima have a separate sports and ceremony hall. Which is normal for me, but unusual in Japan. Can you imagine a ceremony in a sweat-smelling sports hall? Ewww.
The ceremony hall is kind of cool, with permanent seating and stage. But we couldn't take photos there as some students were practicing. It was similar to the sports hall in size.