Tuesday, 9 September 2014

Hiroshima and Miyajima

The following morning we caught the train to Hiroshima and then boarded a bus for a day tour 
 We stopped at Hiroshima castle
 before boarding a ferry
 and heading for Miyajima (Shrine Island)
 the place is full of tame deer


 Miyajima is famous for its "floating" Torii gate


 After which we visited Hiroshima's various sites related to the atomic bomb
The bomb dome
 
The peace bell

The children's peace monument

 And went to the Peace Memorial Museum


Sunday, 7 September 2014

Kyoto

Following our return from the mountain we stopped an an Onsen bath.

It was quite refreshing/relaxing.

I believe the middle one translates as "no smug assholes"
After returning to Tokyo, rechecking into our hotel (same room, just a few floors up) and grabbing some dinner, we slept for the evening and then headed out to check out Tsukiji fish market.

The entrance to the wholesaler's area

People drive motorised carts around with little to no regard for their surroundings.
The disturbing thing is they all have big metal bumpers, that are all dented and banged up.





 The place is absolutely massive.

This is a section containing a handful of stalls

As denoted by the numbered sign above
 There are over 900 stalls all up.

After eating some sushi at the market for lunch we started about the main business of the day, which was to catch the bullet train to Kyoto.

Nozomi N700




Attempting to take a photo at 300km/h


an equal opportunity hotel



We headed out and went to the top of Kyoto tower to view the city.


There are a number of telescopes at the top of the tower.

We also spied this odd glowing band of lights.


After watching the sun set, we headed off to grab dinner and see if we could find the band of lights.

The lights turned out to be a staircase in the train station.


Reverse view from the stairs to the tower.
 After which we grabbed dinner from the food court at the train station (probably the second best sushi on the trip) and turned in for the night.