Writing on the Shinkansen again – on the way to Hakita, eventually for Beppu

I picked up my JR pass on Tuesday and headed straight for Hiroshima (Janet on the other hand headed straight for work, the plan is I’ll travel alone while she’s working, head back there at weekends). Hopped straight on the Shinkansen! The bullet train!

I will confess to cheating, I took that photo a few minutes ago.

Seeing as I’m the most organised person in the world… I arrived at the train station and instantly started hunting down a hostel since I hadn’t booked one. After quite a bit of searching I found K’s House Hiroshima… which turned out to be fantastic! 4 bed dorms, free wifi, beer machine (cheap one!), great kitchen etc. Dumped my bag and headed straight to the Peace Park…

To put the A Bomb Dome in perspective, its remarkable it survived! The Hypocentre of the blast was only 20 metres away, just on the other side of the T Shaped bridge. This is a before photo:

And after:

While on the way to lunch I noticed the key to the hostel was missing. Since I was starving I stayed looking for Beef Donburi, and having found it for ¥750, I retraced my steps… all the way back to the hostel, all the way back to my bloody bag that I left! With the key zipped inside it!

I chilled out for a bit and got talking to a Dutch guy staying in my room. We decided to head out to find dinner and ended up at a tucked away Japanese place that was the first real “fall of feet” find of the trip! Those mushrooms in a light sauce were fantastic!

Next morning I decided that I had seen what I wanted to see in Hiroshima (although I want to point out its a city, not a bombing, and I loved it) and headed on to Miyajima!