The next Princess Mary?!

The Shinkansen - 300km/h!!
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We took the Shinkansen from Osaka to Hiroshima, it takes about three hours, but almost the whole trip is through tunnels so you really have no sensation of time or space passing. We arrived in Hiroshima in the early afternoon and my first impression was of the haze over the city - which I sincerely hope was just your regular big city haze and not some kind of nuclear haze (sure made for a pretty sunset though). Jas and I got straight to walking and headed to Peace Park for a perusal of the Atomic Dome and museum. I wish I could say there was a somber or solemn air to the experience but apparently we showed up in the middle of excursion season so the whole place was a mass of surging school kids in their militaristic uniforms.

paper cranes feature prominantly in Peace Park
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On our way over to the A Dome, we were stopped by a Japanese man who asked to take our picture - not take a picture for us, but of us for himself. Somewhat amused, we dutifully posed for him and he engaged us in conversation about where we were from and then explained he wanted our picture because we could be famous (?!?) ..."Uh, no we're not famous." "You could be next Australian princess, marry Prince William."

the whole place was a mass of surging school kids in their militaristic uniforms

The Atomic Dome
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We spent most of the afternoon just wandering around the streets before heading to our hotel and then out for dinner. Pooped from all the walking, we went back to the hotel and turned on the TV, finding nothing interesting, we forked out 1000Y for a card which enabled more channels only to find the 3 extra channels were porn and manga.

For our second day in Hiroshima we planned a trip to Miya Jima, an island just off the coast, renowned for its large Torii gate built out in the bay. We caught the ferry out to the island and by the time we arrived the tide was fully out so you could walk out to the Torii gate. The sand was pretty swampish though and having only brought one pair of shoes each we decided to just take our photos from the shore. We then went for a wander through the temple which was in the process of being restored after being mostly destroyed by a typhoon.

Miya Jima
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Our next stop on the island was the Miya Jima Aquarium, I have never seen a sadder place. The tanks are all tiny and horrendously bare, just plain cement walls and floor, the worst was the tank for the finless porpoises. Their tank is in the centre of a room so you can walk all the way around it, they seemed so bored and desperate for attention, they follow you around the room and as soon as you look at them they start to play and show off. When we had taken as much misery as we could we went out for more island wanderings, had lunch and caught the ferry back to the mainland. Once we were on the train back to the city I pulled out the tourist brochures I had grabbed from the island, and my jaw dropped... "Oh my god... there was a monkey park at the top of the island and a cable car!!" We completely missed any signs of it, turns out, from the spot where you get off the ferry you can take two paths, one leads to a cable car and monkeys!! The other leads to the sad aqarium, crud. We consoled ourselves with shopping on the way back to the hotel and stopped at a convenience store to buy some food for dinner in our hotel room.

The sometimes underwater Torii gate at Miya Jima
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On day three we finished off our convenience store food for breakfast and walked to the train station from where we could re-orientate ourselves and walk to Hiroshima-Jo. In the surrounding grounds a bonsai showing was being held so we had a look at all the tiny, perfectly groomed trees as well as the oddly shaped Eucalyptus tree growing next to a moat full of coi. There is a small placque next to it saying it was affected by the atomic bomb.

After checking out the surrounds, we paid our entrance fee and worked our way up through each level of the castle. The whole thing was levelled by the a bomb explosion and it has been rebuilt with a museum inside. There are some pretty cool artefacts inside like full Samurai sets of armour (complete with fake moustache on the face guard!) There is also a nice view of the city from the top level and a little souvineer coin vending machine up there too.

After leaving the castle we found our way to a mall and grabbed lunch in a sandwich place, where upon ordering a sandwich we received sandwiches, a hot dog, a side of chips and a bowl of a mystery liquid that tasted like very concentrated chicken stock (were we supposed to drink this? dip something in it? pour it over our chips? we had a taste and left it to the side). We resumed shopping for a few hours before making our way back to the train station and taking the Shinkansen back to Osaka.

I must say if we had planned better we probably could have seen all we wanted to see in Hiroshima (Peace Park, Miya Jima and Hiroshima-jo) in one day and saved ourselves the accommodation money. We might have spent longer at Peace Park and the museum if the crowds weren't so ridiculously huge but as it was we weren't able to get a decent look at anything anyway so we just wanted to speed through and get back to the hotel and a bit of breathing space. For an overnight stay I think we would have done better in Kyoto.