If you want to juxtapose your emotions, visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. It offers a feeling of melancholic gloom for the devastation caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima contrasted against a sense of comforting happiness to see present day Hiroshima a bustling and vibrant city literally risen from the ashes.

Hiroshima is the first city in history subjected to nuclear warfare when the nuclear weapon ‘Little Boy’ was dropped on the city by the B-29 bomber Enola Gay on August 6, 1945 during World War II. The city was destroyed and an estimated 80,000 people were directly killed by the bomb.

Following are some of the monuments and memorials found in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park:

A-Bomb Dome

The A-Bomb Dome, almost the hypocenter of the atomic bomb blast, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. The uranium bomb detonated almost directly above this building. Surprisingly, the skeletal remains are one of only a few buildings to survive the blast.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial, commonly called the Atomic Bomb Dome or A-Bomb Dome

On a recent trip to Kyoto I was forced to respect the protocol. That is, if you go to Kyoto you must embark on an intense tour of temples, shrines, castles and imperial palaces.

This was my third time in Kyoto. On my second trip back in 2003, I disappointed zoomz (my wife) by abandoning her well prepared temple tour itinerary in lieu of a pub crawl of every British and Irish drinking establishment I could find.

This time around, in an effort to maintain peace time relations with zoomz, I submitted to the Kyoto Protocol. Following are a few highlights.

Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion Temple)

Originally built in 1397 as a retirement villa for the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, the Golden Pavilion Temple is set in a Japanese strolling garden on the edge of the Mirror Pond. The original structure was burnt down by some rogue, suicidal monk in 1950. The present day structure was built in 1955.

Kinkaku-ju (The Golden Pavilion Temple)