Hello!

Ed and I continued down to Hiroshima, stopping at a stunning castle in Himeji (see the picture above.) And it was scorching the further south we went...

Hiroshima was a great, laid back city. It`s incredible that everything is relatively new (at most 60 years old) after the city got destroyed. The Peace Museum was fascinating, very objective and well handled. And the A-Bomb Dome is a very suitable memorial. After more okonomiyaki and one last night in a reggae bar, I left Ed and returned back up to Kyoto stopping at Miyajima, to see a stunning floating torri gate in the sea. Despite the pissing rain I hiked up Mt Misen on the island (only 530m, no repeat of fuji!) And nearly trod on a snake AGAIN! And this one was huge and actually swerved towards me as I jumped to avoid it. Always look down when hiking!

Last days I`ve done some hiking out in the countryside and entertained some villagers who could not understand what the hell I was doing in their little village. I managed a quick trip to the beach yesterday (stunning, but then they did import the sand from australia!) and today I`ve had my last day in Kyoto. And randomly saw Jarvis Cocker from Pulp in a temple this morning. He was standing right next to me! It`s a crazy world...

I don`t want to leave Japan, it`s incredible but off to thailand via kuala lumpur (bloody overnight stop!) tomorrow. I`ll leave you with my favourite Japanese invention. The umbrella condom. When it`s raining, department stores bring out a machine in which you insert your umbrella into the machine and it coats it with a layer of plastic to prevent drippage in the shop. Ingenious. Completely pointless. But ingenious. Let`s have the umbrella condom in Britian!

Hope everyone`s well, saw berkshire underwater on the BBC website so hope everyone had insurance.

Lerve

Jonny