Hiroshima

I got up at 6am and Philip and I walked to the train station. He went from there to work and I got a train to Himeji and from there to Hiroshima. I was in Hiroshima by 8.30am and it was raining heavily. I found the hostel but it took a lot longer than expected as I got lost. I couldn't check in until 3pm but it was good that I knew where to go and I bought a day tram ticket in the hostel. I sat in a hostel and quickly made a plan of what I would do. I went straight to the A-Bomb Dome, one of the few buildings that wasn't reduced to rubble in 1945 and the only one they decided to keep as a memorial. It was quite eery. Across the river is the Peace Memorial Park, it was nice place to stroll around and they had different statues and monuments and also the Peace Flame which will be put out when all the world's atomic bombs are destroyed. In the Peace Memorial Park, there was the Peace Memorial Hall which was so quiet and then I went to the Peace Memorial Museum which told the story of why the bomb was dropped and how they work etc.

I stopped in to a cafe for a coffee which cost 400￥ so I left a 500￥ and left. He came running after me and gave me my change. Philip later told me they don't tip in Japan. It isn't honorable to take it.

As a typical Irish tourist, I had dinner in McDonalds. The chips were better than home but the burger wasn't. I checked in at the hostel and tried to dry off a bit before going back out. I went to a bar called Kembys. It was a nice place and the bar man was American so I was chatting to him before it got busy. I forget why but there was some celebration and a Vietnamese bar man made curry so I had some of that. It was very hot. A few beers helped cool my mouth. While sitting on my own I researched how to get to Miyajima and what to do there.