Hiroshima, peace, and a bullet train to Kyoto

We are about to go to bed in our "Tea Ceremony" room in a ryokan, a Japanese-style inn, in Kyoto after a long day of sightseeing and travel. Our day started around 6am in Hiroshima, when Katie and I both gave up on trying to get anymore sleep. Jet-lag has been really bad. After a Japanese-style breakfast at the hotel (rice porridge, smoked salmon, miso soup, salad, and various other small dishes), we took a walk to Peace Memorial Park, to see all the monuments dedicated to the victims of the atomic bomb blast. It was a beautiful park, and we were glad to experience it before all the tour buses showed up.

After our stroll through the park, we headed back to our hotel for a video call with Penelope. It was great to see her and talk to her, even if she wasn't very interested in us. Mostly it was good to see that she was having fun and wasn't bothered that we were away. Speaking of which, there is really no way that we could have brought her. She would have been bored by all that we wanted to do, freaked out by some of the toilets here, and not happy with all the running around. That would have meant we would not have gotten a chance to enjoy ourselves, so this really was the best solution and everyone seemed happy with it.

After seeing Penelope, we went to the Hiroshima Peace Museum. It was incredibly moving, an amazing testament to the destruction of the atomic bomb and the effects it had on the people of Hiroshima. The museum was dedicated to world peace and the abolition of all nuclear weapons. The most surprising thing we learned there was that the US continues to conduct nuclear tests. Some of the photos were pretty disturbing, but it was an incredible experience. Anyway, I won't try to describe all of it. It is one of those places that you just have to see for yourself (and photos wouldn't even do it justice, so I didn't take any).

We next headed to Okonomiyaki Village for a Hiroshima specialty. Okonomiyaki is essentially a crepe with lettuce, bean sprouts, and bacon fried over noodles, with a fried egg, served with yummy sauce and seasonings. It's hard to describe, but it is cooked on a hot griddle right in front of you. It was great. We even made an exception to our no photos of food rule and took a picture of it. Mmm, yummy!

After lunch, we headed to Hiroshima Castle. It was a cool old Japanese castle, but by that point were were getting pretty tired, so we mostly just rested on benches in the grounds. They had cool giant bonsai trees, though. We then headed back to our hotel to collect our luggage. We took the streetcar to the train station and boarded our bullet train (the Shinkansen Nozomi) to Kyoto. The train hit top speeds of 180mph according to my GPS, and it was incredibly smooth and quiet. Our ears popped every time we went in and out of a tunnel, though (and there were a lot of tunnels to get through all the mountains). The world just zipped by outside.

Once in Kyoto, we navigated through the incredibly busy train station, then walked to our hotel. Our room has no beds, but instead futon mats that you roll out to sleep on. Very quaint and simple. After an explanation of how to use our room from the innkeeper, we headed out to dinner. We had a yummy sashimi and tempura dinner. Then we came back and made our beds. Hopefully we sleep well tonight, because we have a full day of exploring Kyoto ahead of us. Luckily, we are exhausted from today, so sleep shouldn't be a problem.