Hiroshima

Leaving Tokyo behind for a few days, we have our first taste of the famed efficient, fast bullet trains and arrive in Hiroshima at exactly the prescribed hour.

Peace Memorial park

We have just one full day to visit this city and pay our respects to its tragic past, and witness its transformation from the most war torn of sites to a modern city in the most modern of countries. The A Dome, has been left in the state that the bomb left it is as testimony to the devastation wreaked by the 1945 attack. Around it a memorial park has been developed, which house several memorials, a cenotaph, memorial hall and museum. The museum presents a full picture of the events running up to the attack and the aftermath, as well as acting as a central point from which the city leads protests against nuclear arms. Walking round the memorials and museum I was stuck by how the city does not in any way look for victim status, and gives a balanced account of Japan's role in the Asia-Pacific and Second World Wars, calling for school texts across Asia to reflect a perhaps less biased version of history.

The A-bomb dome

We spend the rest of the day on the island of Miyajima, a tram and ferry ride out of the city. This is an opportunity to see the first pagodas of our trip as well as the island's main draw, the O-torii Gate. All Shinto shrines have a (normally ornate) gate at their entrance through which worshippers must pass. To avoid the great unwashed of the island entering the shrine, the gate was built at sea so that the wealthy could enter by boat. Now the gate stands in mud, surrounded by Japanese tourists searching the low tide for cockles. It takes a stretch of imagination to see the worshippers approaching the shrine with reverence as opposed to a digital camera.

Close-up of the gate

Our day trip presents another opportunity to take in some Japanese pop culture, this time the fantastic slogans on teenagers' t-shirts. I fear that Japanese designers may just take a random list of English phrases mix them up and print them on brightly coloured t's. My favourite today read, 'Reap the Narvest (sic) of Jack & Jill'. We'll be trying to top that over the coming days...

The cenotaph

In the Peace park

Thousands of paper cranes

Charlotte tries interesting Japanese food

Japanese cockle picking in Miyajima

Miyajima gate

Srine and pagoda in Miyajima

In the Great Hall

Pagoda from the Great Hall

Close-up of the pagoda

Hmm...

The shinkasen

Bullet train