After completing your visit to the exhibit, you can then visit the gift shop.
The majority of the books are in Japanese but fortunately, you can find books in English. I do recommend the manga “Hiroshima’s Revival: Remembering how people overcame destruction and despair”, which is wonderful. This is offered in both Japanese and also English.
In addition, you can find stickers and postcards and other merchandise, I ended up buying stickers of anti-nuclear missiles.
There is a section you can see that pertains to excavation work done under the main building and a piece of the A-Bombed layer.
Under the main building of the museum, around 1,000 containers worth of artifacts from the Edo era, before and after the wars and household items used at that time of the bombing were found.
A clock (Peace Watch) with displays of how many days had passed since the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and how many days have past since nuclear testing was done.
A section featuring President Obama when he came to Hiroshima and gave away paper cranes to children.
Meanwhile…
In conclusion, visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum was a lot more than I expected. It was an eye-opening experience and while it was no doubt sad, there are lessons to be learned. Important lessons that deal with what a nuclear bomb can do and through the experiences of the victims and the vast amount of information collected, no one wants to see another Hiroshima tragic event happen in our lifetime.
This visit to the museum was long overdue and was on my bucketlist for a very long time and for those considering visiting this museum, I highly recommend it. You won’t forget the experience.
And right after the museum, there’s even more… the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
