Hiroshima

Since Steve had eaten lots of our muesli in Tokyo, and since we had a kitchen, we cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast. While that was happening, we had washing machines in action on the roof-top laundry.
We had booked a volunteer guide from the Goodwill Club, and Mr Toshio Ikeda arrived at about 9:30. His plan was to take us first to Miyajima Island. We had been told about it by a girl we met at ShibuOnsen, and had decided to go tomorrow, so going a day early was fine by us.
We took a local JR train for about 25mins, then a ferry for 10mins. This island is famous for its Shinto Itsukushima shrine, and in particular, the O-tori Gate,

which is out in the bay, for devotees who used to arrive by boat.


We looked around for a while, then climbed up to the Buddhist Daisho-In temple,

and then went to the Hokoku hall of 1000 mats. (The size of rooms in Japan is often described by the number of tatami mats it would fit. A small bedroom would be about 7, a large living room about 14.)

Had we gone on our own, we may have made time to go up the mountain on the cable car, but we didn't. Instead, we walked through the tourist street, said goodbye to the deer,


and went back to the mainland. For lunch we had vegetable pancakes as we had in Nara, but they were slightly different this time.
We took the train back to the city, and got a tram past the Peace Park to the Hiroshima Castle.

Of course, very little was left standing after the bomb in 1945, but the tower was rebuilt in its original fashion.

In the gardens around the castle are three trees that did survive, even though they are less than one kilometre from the blast point. We climbed to the top but it was pretty hazy, so we couldn't see far.

Then we walked a few streets to the Shukkeien gardens, which are very peaceful.

By now I was pretty tired, and it was 17:00, so we were escorted back to the main train station, and Ikeda-san left us. We shopped for icecream, and came back to the hostel to cook and have dinner, bring in the washing, put it through the drier for finishing off, and wash hair before starting on today's memories.