Hiroshima

Another bullet train journey to arrive in Hiroshima. Our hotel, the Sheraton Grand, is located next to the train station. We had sent on the bulk of our luggage from Toyko and, thank goodness, it had arrived and was already in our room. This system of sending on luggage is really efficient and not very costly. As such, we decide to do the same again, with our final destination of Hotel Granvia Kyoto being the recipient. Hiroshima is really only known for one thing and so we take ourselves off to the Peace Memorial Park by tram. The weather is a bit overcast with some spots of rain, so we go to the main building that houses the displays and general information about the history of the city, but in particular the events leading up to August 6th 1945. The exhibition also promotes world peace and safety, in particular advocating nucleur disarmament. Later we walk in the park and see the A-bomb dome, which is a symbolic reminder of the day of the bomb, that detonated close-by.

After that, we take a local train and a ferry to the island of Miyajima, the site of the Itsukushma Shrine, that dates back to the 6th Century. This shrine is the only one where the toril gate has been built on top of the water. It is quite busy with many tourists and many deer, the latter being quite aggressive (for food) and, as in my case, one managed to eat my map of the island in the instant I had briefly put it down. Lucky I had not put down the ferry tickets! Off the beaten track, it was much quieter, especially up the hill and in the wooded areas. There were some other lovely temples and shrines; we are probably reaching our saturation point on such buildings as there are so many in Japan.

We do have a great lunch on the beach side near the water, but away from the crowds. It was an excellent bowl of noodles and only after we had eaten did we find the restuarant, Kiyomori-Chaya, had excellent Trip Adviser ratings; rightly so as well.

Tomorrow another bullet train journey to our last destination in Japan - Kyoto.