Day 9 - Hiroshima

Leaving Tokyo by bullet train, transferring at Osaka, we travelled some 4 hours and 850km south to visit Hiroshima today, the city made famous for all the wrong reasons. It was the site of the worlds first atomic bomb in, Aug 6th 1945 at 8:15am, killing 1000s in seconds and disintegrating the entire city in moments. It has been fully rebuilt from the ashes but is now an international peace centre with a very moving peace garden and museum - both a must.

Although Hiroshima has regrown and rebuilt the horrors of the mass killings and brutality of war are in the air. I got an eerie sense walking around the city, even though itsthriving one with trams and subways.

We only had 5 hours to pass in the city, all of which was taken up in the peace garden and exhibits as we had to catch a train back to Osaka where we will be basing ourselves for the next two nights. Osaka is the third largest city in Japan and a sky scraper heaven. We're staying in the ANA Crowne Plaza, which we got for free as reward nights. They even upgraded us to a suite! That's what you get for being a loyal intercontinental customer (Thank you work!).

We had a drink in The Blarney stone, ate in a local Japanese noodle bar and sipped on a vodka in a local bar.

Tomorrow we plan to Visit Kyoto.