Self Portrait


I was in Hiroshima, Japan. Photo above is the A-Bomb Dome, a landmark building that was destroyed except for a few walls and the steel frame of the dome. It should be recognizable to many as it is the image most commonly shown of the destruction of Hiroshima.

Mr. Ford (of Ford Motor Company) and Maharishi Clipper were the winners of round 1. Mr. Ford made a great educated guess early in the game, a guess but still good enough for a prize. The Maharishi pieced it together with the help of a friend who lived in Japan for a while. As I said long ago, he has a mastery of all things internet.

Clue 1: The Toukasan festival was held in Hiroshima on June 6-8. The festival kicks off summer, symbolizing a switch from the normal kimono dress to the summer "yukata". Granted, that would have been hard to deduce from a taco stand, but Mr. Clipper got Japan out of this photo.

Clue 2: If you googled "offering of water", one of the hits would have been about Hiroshima. Many of the bomb victims did not die instantly, they walked home or lay down to die with severe burns. They cried for water, but the believe of the day was that giving them water would kill them instantly. Therefore, many people did not give water, and they regret it to this day. Hence it is a common offering at memorials around the city.

Clue 3: This is a bridge girder in a museum at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Hard to determine much from this alone, but given the information above, one could deduce Hiroshima might have a museum with some broken stuff in it. Also an engineer would know that there are not many ways to break a truss like this. I can think of earthquakes, severe impact loads, and nuclear bombs.