Think of Hiroshima and obviously one major thing springs to mind - the Atomic Bomb that was dropped there, the first ever used in history, which destroyed the entire city and killed hundreds of thousands of people. This was our main reason for coming to Hiroshima but instead of a place destroyed and still struggling to re-establish itself we found a very cosmopolitain and bustling city. The Peace Museum gives a chilling account of the effect the bomb had and how it killed people, mainly civilian, in such a cruel and tortorous way. It also explained very well where the war was and how the Americans came to use and even develop the Atomic Bomb (even showing a letter written to President Eisenhower by Einstein asking him to begin looking at nuclear weapons as they suspected the Germans were developing them!).

Hiroshima are also very involved in the ongoing fight against nuclear power and every time a nuclear test takes place their major writes to the president of the country doing the tests urging them to stop. They listed all of the mistakes involving nuclear power that have taken place and all of the lives lost due to mistakes which could have been so much worse. And even more scarily they listed all the times that we know of when use of nuclear power again was debated - all very recent! Having planned to spend a couple of minutes wandering in the museum we managed to lose 2 hours in there reading the harrowing accounts of the injuries and deaths caused and how it all came to happen and could happen again any day with dire consequences for the entire world. Not something you forget about easily and I imagine that's what they hoped to achieve with the museum.

The peace park is set in an area beside the river in Hiroshima, just down from the T shaped bridge that was used as the target and the A Bomb Dome building which was never demolished to remind everyone of the destruction the bomb caused. The area the park stands on was annihilated when the bomb was detonated and its now used as a memorial for all of those who were killed or injured. There's lots of memorials to the different groups killed such as teachers, students and Korean who were being used as forced labour during the war. There's even a mound where all of those who couldn't be identified as they were so badly injured have been cremated and their ashes are buried as well as a cenopath where a list of everyone killed due to the bomb is kept. The most touching memorial for me was the children's memorial which is in the shape of a white paper crane. The white paper crane stands for the story of a girl who was 2 when the bomb went off and apparently suffered no injuries but when she reached her teens she developed leukemia due to the radiation from the bomb. She believed that if she folded a thousand paper cranes that her wish to live would be granted. She reached her goal but unfortunately she passed away. Her story touched lots of people all over the world and even to this day paper cranes are being made up by people all over the world and sent to Hiroshima where they're exhibited in her honour.

Miyajima was a much more uplifting experience the following day - it's an island in the Inland Sea just outside Hiroshima and its gorgeous. The most famous thing about Miyajima is the red O-torii that sits right out in the bay and serves as an entrance to one of the Buddhist temples there. It was as beautiful as all the pictures we'd seen and the sunset over it was gorgeous too. We caught the cable car up to the top of Mt Misen and took in the breathtaking views and had a wander through the native forest up there - we were looking for monkeys but we saw none :(. We did see lots of deers on the island but I'd learnt my lesson and steered clear this time.

We couldn't leave Japan without staying in a traditional Japanese ryokan, where we slept on tatami mats (no beds) and wheat filled pillows, wore kimono type robes at all times around the house and so on. All very nice but you really can't compare the nights sleep you get in a bed to sleeping on the floor - maybe we're getting too old for this. ;)