J-Hoppers Hiroshima

Ben Reporting: Obviously a city like Hiroshima comes with some pre-conceptions from a Westerners point of view. It was the first city in history to be bombed by an atomic bomb, an action that, in a flash, destroyed an entire city and ended WWII. Some might expect Hiroshima to be a dirty city, still showing scars of ruins, others might expect a city still bitter and closed off to outside contact. The reality is much different. To be honest, Hiroshima is one of the cleanest, neatest and most we...

Nagasaki was great, but I was ready to move to the next destination after 2 nights! Headed down to check out at 8am and the owner gave me a present! It's a banner type piece of cloth, with Japanese writing on it. It's pretty cool, although there are 4 possible ways that it could go...and I don't know which on it is. I'm sure it will end up upside down and backwards when i put it on my wall back home. Made for the station...even then the sun was way up in the clear blue sky and it was once aga...

Another early start today to make sure I got to Miyajima when the tide was in - which is important....all will be revealed. Weather has been fantastic yet again. Bumped into a couple of Austrian girls from my hostel on the way, so went over with them. The tram ride was around 45 mins. Arrived at the ferry with some time to spare so wandered into a cake shop to have a look..and end up buying a small cake, and the lady behind the counter ended up making me a present! It's a paper crane....ever ...

We couldn't help but have a lie in the next day, the travel fatigue has definitely caught up with us. Fortunately the shinkansen (bullet train) only took 15 minutes to deliver us safely in Kyoto and though we couldn't find an internet cafe we did find some digestible lunch - Nay had a teriyaki chicken bento box with assorted **** on the side and I had some sandwiches with a fair bit of horseradish. We made our way to the superb J-Hoppers hostel and began researching sights to see in Kyoto - b...

After breakfast in our temple in Koyasan we packed up and jumped on a bus back to the station. Then we took the cable car down to Gokurakubashi, and two trains back to Osaka. Then we took a fast train to Shin-Osaka, the main station and got on a Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima. When we got out of Hiroshima station we hopped on a tram to Dobashi and walked to our next hostel - J-Hoppers Hiroshima. We were really warmly welcomed and settled into our room (they even told us they had put t...

Today we went to Miyajima to see the beautiful o-torii gate floating in the Inland Sea. it's one of the most photographed sites in Japan and not to be missed. To get there we took a tram from our hostel down to the ferry port and hopped on a JR Ferry across the water. (The ferry ticket was covered by our rail passes). It was a beautiful day, still and not a cloud in the sky. The ferry only takes 10 minutes and it took a course in front of the torii gate so that we could take some photos. As i...

Experiencing Hiroshima has been....as I sit and think of a word to write there, so many come to mind, and yet none are the right ones. 'Amazing' implies that it is a positive experience. It is not. 'Awe inspiring' is close in that one is in awe to see the dispays, monuments, paper cranes, museum, and other sights, but again, the two words are not correct. 'Wonderful' is too flowery a word, and again has such positive connotations. On the other hand I would not say that experiencing Hiroshima ...

Arrived last night in Hiroshima after 2.5 hours on the train (90 minutes on a shinkansen from Osaka). The screen on the shinkansen announced that we were traveling at 285 km/h (171 miles per hour).

Took a tram from the station to the hostel that went by the A-bomb dome. All lit up, eerily magnificent. Hiroshima is pretty big, at least from the perspective of the tram. Stunning when you consider that the place is only 65 years old...

Amazingly clean hostel, friendly guests and st...

Time is running out for me and Japan; I only have two days in Hiroshima, well, one and and a half, so I got an early train, got to Hiroshima before noon! Dropped off my bags and back out the door to the Peace Memorial Park. Hiroshima was first to have an A-Bomb dropped on it. I'm hazy on the history; Japan had been involved with China, the US didn't like their pact with Russia or something... The US mounted pressure on Russia to declare war on Japan, which it did 3 days after the US bombed Hi...