Hiroshima

We left Tokyo, and came down to Hiroshima in the 'Bullet Train', aka Shinkansen,

which would have made the trip comparatively short, but this was a long weekend in Japan, so we could not go straight through, as there were limited seats on the trains, therefore we had a couple of hours wait at Shin-Osaka.
Somehow we got the wrong train though, with the result that a disgruntled fellow passenger was wondering why we were in his reserved seat, so we had to do the 'walk of shame', with our bags through to the non-reserved section, and continue our trip there.
That was OK, we got there in the end, at about 2pm.
Once we found our hotel and set up, we walked to the Peace Park, where we saw, among other sad things, the 'Atomic Dome',

which was one of the few things left standing after the A-Bomb was detonated some 600 metres over the area, including the hospital, on August 6th 1945. The other picture is of the children's memorial,

in recognition of the innocent children killed then and afterwards by radiation.
Next day, we went to the Island Shrine, Miyajima, along with thousands of other tourists including the locals, revelling in the long weekend. There are lots of native deer on the island also, who pay you particular attention if you happen to buy food.
We went to the shrine, which has its Tori, (gate to shrine), out in the water,

then carried on through the forest up the mountain, (Mount Misen), on foot. Hannelore had to walk up and down with me, instead of taking the cable car, because of my wimpiness about heights. Here she is, powering up the quite beautiful forest path.

The view from there is described as 'one of the three best' in Japan,

and this could be so, although it was not a clear day, because typhoon Vongfong was supposed to be bearing down on us. Apart from being a little cloudy, however, we had no problems, and once down from the mountain found a restaurant where we had another nice Japanese meal.
We had Kamameshi, which is fish (me) and chicken (Hannelore), with a kind of savoury rice in a heated cast iron bowl, with miso soup on the side, and we loved it! Washed it down with a nice big well deserved beer.
After we returned to Hiroshima, we had another great Japanese meal, Okonomiyaki, a savoury pancake which we also loved, this time assisted by Dessai sake, good for our feet and legs which were starting to seize up after our mountain climb.