"Deep down, local people want to be left alone," said Saeki, who now works as a taxi-driver. "There are a slew of events on August 6 and some of them are really like a festival. You know, it's not an amusing anniversary," he said.
"I have never been to the atomic bomb museum and I never will go as I don't want to recall it," Saeki said, echoing a phrase often heard from atomic bomb survivors.
Some 55,000 people showed up near the museum at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to mourn the dead and pray for peace at 8:15 am, the exact moment 60 years ago when the bomb struck.
But dozens of people came instead at the crack of dawn, crying and praying in a more private way.
"I came to pray for peace. Recalling the war makes me tremble even now," said Shoko Okamoto, 78, who came with her granddaughter to the Hiroshima cenotaph memorial at 5am.
"It is strange that I'm still alive today when others a few meters away from me died under their collapsed houses from the bombing," she said.
At 7am, the road to the cenotaph was closed down for security reasons ahead of the main event.
"I usually visit here once a month either early in the morning or in the evening, when the site is not so crowded," said Natsuko Kawada, 80.
"I can never forget that orange flash I saw. Many of my friends died from it and many others suffered burns all over their bodies. I feel so sorry for them," she said.
Some Hiroshima survivors feel that the nation's concern over the nuclear bombings is only momentary. The Japan Broadcasting Corporation, the public network better known as NHK, broadcast the Hiroshima ceremony live for 35 minutes and after Koizumi's speech switched to a television drama and then high school baseball.
Takashi Nishikawa, 74, who prayed at dawn for his lost uncle, said he wanted Koizumi "to tackle the issue of world peace with more seriousness."
Shin Hibiki, 80, came in his wheelchair to the memorial and stared at boxes filled with the remains of four atomic bomb victims under a banner that reads, "Until we can be sure that atomic bombs are completely abandoned, we will not be able to rest in peace."
The victims, who died after the bombing, had said in their wills they did not want to be buried until nuclear weapons were abolished.
"Look at those remains. They are sacrificing their eternal rest for the cause of peace," Hibiki said.
He added angrily: "They will never be able to have their own graves in this world with nuclear weapons."
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