Hiroshima

Night bus to Hiroshima, a place that just about everyone knows the name of for what happened here on 6^th August 1945, ultimately bringing WWII to a rapid end. But history aside, Hiroshima is a vibrant modern city, with a nice riverside and gardens.

Started our visit on a hot, hot Sunday afternoon by going to the baseball match – the local team, the Hiroshima Carps verses as of yet an unknown adversary (their name was in kanji) at their brand new stadium. Fabulous atmosphere and day out, think we were the only non-Japanese there. Now, I remember playing baseball (well, softball actually) at school, but oh my god, what a long, drawn out tedious game it is. The match lasted for three hours, and I'd guess, probably less than one hour of that is actual play. And of the play, most of it is just watching the bowler bowl the ball to the little man who catches the ball behind the batter. Is cricket this slow too?

Visited the peace park and the A-Bomb dome, the bombed out former city trade hall 300 metres from the hypocentre – the point on the ground where the bomb detonated, at a point of 600 metres above the city. The place is really bizarre as it's so peaceful and difficult to imagine what happened here. The A-Bomb museum is very well done too – focusing on the events leading up to and after the bombing, including details of US war time intelligence and letters from leaders of the Manhattan Project, leading up to the current status of nuclear weapons throughout the world.

Spent our last day in Hiroshima at the island of Miyajima which is full of... you guessed it, temples and shrines! Including a Torii gate in the sea, and I'm sure this was the temple that the last fight scene was stages in “Ninja” for the Commodore 64.

Night bus on to Osaka, Nagoya and then Takayama, hopefully for a change of scenery in the mountains. More pictures here!