Hiroshima and Miyajima

Hiroshima - the peace garden was very peaceful, otherwise the town is very modern and bustling. I went into a department store, it was more like a series of joined up, very up-market, boutiques.

A tree near the castle that got blasted but survived.

The paper cranes in the children's park

The dome, left as a reminder.

Miyajima - a lovely little island, famous for its floating Torii (shrine gate).

If I had felt inclined I could have had a nice hike in the hills but I didn't feel inclined. Instead I patted the deer, had my photo taken with 2 Japanese ladies in traditional dress and tried a local cake speciality.

 

For lunch I tried Okonomiyaki, I'm becoming more adventurous and trying different restaurants, discovering that not everything is served with pickles, or even green tea.

It took me 5 days to realise that the Japanese drive on the left! Probably because I was so busy avoiding bicycles that I failed to notice the cars. Cyclists here are a total menace, they cycle on the footpath, ignore red lights and seem to be everywhere. Today I finally managed to collide with one, fortunately neither of us came to any harm. I saw some of the news this morning, I couldn't understand what was said but, for this, I didn't need to. It was an interview showing workers still searching for bodies after the tsunami, they were nearly in tears with the futility of it. When I was in England Japan had disappeared from the news but here they are still reeling.