Day 8 - Hiroshima 広島市

Hiroshima seemed to be a moderately sized place by Japanese standards. Its buildings weren't as tall as Tokyo's or Osaka's and they were fairly modern unlike Kyoto (I suppose for fairly obvious reasons). Transport around the area we were staying in was by tram but it was quite easy to walk most places so we didn't bother with the trams much.

Our first destination was the Shukkei-en gardens which I believe was originally landscaped to look like a particular lake in China. It has miniature waterfalls, valleys and mountains and the path around it is intended to give as much variety in the views as possible within the small gardens. The gardens were heavily damaged in the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima.

Next stop was Hiroshima Castle with a quick stop to take a photo of a biting tree.

Hiroshima Castle was smaller than Osaka Castle, still quite impressive but there wasn't as much inside and there were only brief descriptions of the exhibits in English. The original Hiroshima Castle was destroyed in the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima.

Once done at Hiroshima Castle I led us on a rather scenic route back to the hotel and so Dave had to soak his aching feet.

He managed to drag himself out later to grab a couple of shots of Hiroshima at night though and then it was the end of another day, rounded off nicely with beer, sake and indecipherable anime.