Miyajima

After hobbling down the hill in Onomichi, we caught the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. The city is known for one awful thing. Chelsea visited the Peace Memorial Museum while Dan, who has been before, chilled out in a café.

The museum curates objects, stories, and photographs from the aftermath of the first atomic bomb blast in August 1945, with images of burn victims, vaporised human shadows on stone, and lost objects and clothing torn away. It’s harrowing and somber, set in an unsettling park opposite the A-bomb Dome, one of few surviving structures from the blast’s hypocentre. Much of the museum is dedicated to nuclear nonproliferation (which feels more and more topical these days 😬).

Aside from the nuclear history, Hiroshima is a bustling city, famous for its citrus fruits, oysters and conger eel (anago). We found a hidden spot to enjoy anago on rice with citrus sake, then hopped on a late train to Miyajima—the main purpose of our visit here. Miyajima is home to the Itsukushima Shrine and perhaps the most famous scenic view in Japan: mammoth orange Torii gates raised in the sea. It was already baking at 10am so we enjoyed getting our feet wet at low tide, as we approached the 16m tall gates. Chelsea was very careful to keep her weeping knee grazes out of the salt water.

From there, we walked through the shrine, and on uphill (!) to Daishoin Shrine, where we met 500 tiny Buddhist disciples (rakan) in fabulously rakish red berets. Still battling the heat, we martyred ourselves by drinking iced lemon shouchu, walked through the market and ate momiji-manju (fried cheese pastry), grilled oysters, okonomiyaki, and matcha ice creams. It's been really tough.

At this point we’d hung around long enough for high tide, so we went through the Itsukushima Shrine again, this time with more water around its stilt foundations, before heading happily back to our hotel for a bath (something we have been sorely missing this year!). Chelsea did flood the bathroom with hers, but to be fair, it doesn't say anywhere that you're not allowed to do that.

Today we’re running our train passes down to the last day with a bullet train to Fukuoka, our final stop in Japan! 🚅🥹🇯🇵Read more