Feeling refreshed from my stay on the mountain, I had a couple more days around Osaka to explore. I visited the biggest castle in Japan, Himeji, only an hour away by train. This was the second time it rained on me in Japan and after getting drenched in my rain jacket that I bought in India, I forked out for the see-through umbrella that eveyone else was sporting.

Unfortunately the rain didn’t put anyone off visiting the castle and I spent an hour waiting to go inside the main keep, doing the familiar queue shuffle around the narrow castle walls.

Once inside you have to take your shoes off and put them in a plastic bags. I followed the crowds with wet feet, wondering if this was worth it, as the inside of the castle is mostly empty. I did get some good views of cherry blossom in the rain…

The thing I liked best about Himeji was the nearby Sakurasaku restaurant, run by a lovely woman who quite literally ran from the kitchen to the low tables serving up delicious set menus (her first question was ‘are you vegan?’) , accompanied (as usual in these establishments) by coffee and cake. It looks like a fruit and veg shop from the outside but it was worth the trip to Himeji to sit on the floor for a while in this old fashioned place, enjoy the food and even the wartime music.

Osaka itself is a cool city that I would come back to, if only to experience the night life which I missed out on as I was always too exhausted from walking all day to go out again. The cherry tree lined river is beautiful and Osaka has it’s own castle, which would probably have been just as a good as Himeji.

There was time for some more silver jewellery shopping, a visit to a dragon shrine and the best food I had in Japan at the tiny Base Island Kitchen. The beautiful woman here serves up vegan tapas style dishes. I found her place just moments from where I was shopping by doing a quick Google maps search for ‘vegan food’ 🙏 I wish I could recreate these ‘nuggets’ at home!

Now that I had an extra week, Hiroshima was added to the itinerary. After some takeout avocado sushi (the best I have ever tasted, obviously as this is Japan), another couple of hours west on the Shinkansen and another reason I should have bought the JR pass (although overall I don’t think I was actually worse off because I took one way tickets) I arrived in the city famous for the atomic bomb.

I was a little apprehensive of visiting. But whilst it’s undoubtedly emotional – seeing a watch that stopped at the moment of the blast in 1945 and a child’s burned bicycle along with their cute smiling faces is hard – it’s actually incredibly peaceful and the ultimate feeling you are left with is one of hope. I learned a lot in the museum and Peace Memorial – such as just how many nuclear weapons there still are in the world today, and that in the 1980s there were enough to kill every member of the human race several times over.

Hiroshima is a quiet city and I saw the sites on foot in one day. It was also very cold! I spent two nights here in another K’s House hostel as the sister hostel in Hakone was so good, but the Hiroshima branch just doesn’t compare – the common area had no atmosphere and was always full of couples glued to their phones and not talking to each other (another reason to travel solo!) 🤔

The cherry blossom was well and truly in bloom in Hiroshima, and well worth extending my stay for! Cherry blossom viewing even has a name – ‘hanami’. It’s a national past time in Japan, with rows of blankets spread out under the trees and picnics in full swing. It’s really lovely to see.

The ruins of the only building in the centre left partially standing after the bomb is the Atomic Dome. The city decided to keep it as a reminder of the devastation and has campaigned for peace ever since. Seeing these ruins in stark contrast to the sky scrapers behind and the bright pink cherry blossoms lining the river infront is hard to comprehend.

There was bicycle set up nearby, with a folder packed with information and first hand stories of the bomb that are not found in the museum, website below which I will look at when I get home.

Naturally there is a castle in Hiroshima, which has been rebuilt and was worth a look although as all of the information was in Japanese I didn’t really know what I was looking at.

As always, I found a quirky little cafe in ‘Buddies’ just around the corner from the Peace Memorial to get out of the cold for a while. Shame I wasn’t there for the live music.

The Shukkeien gardens have been restored and are really worth a look. I tried the sticky rice and sweet soy sauce while I was there.

I’m glad I went to Hiroshima. Knowing you’re standing on the site of an Atomic Bomb is a strange feeling. At the Victims Memorial you can select a name on a touchscreen from up to 146,000 people killed as a result of the blast or radiation later in life, to see their photo, look into their eyes and read about their life. I only managed to look at three of them.

Paying respect here and becoming more educated about this moment in history was the least I could do before I was fortunate enough to continue my travels. Next stop, the island of Miyagima, which I will write as a separate post.