We woke up fairly early this morning, as we had a bit to do before leaving the house, and hadn’t packed.  Kaoru still had no idea where we were going, other than we were taking the Shinkansen (bullet train).

From Fujisawa we caught a local train to Yokohama, then a local train to Shin-Yokohama, where we hopped on the fastest of the bullet trains.  This told Kaoru the direction we were going, so she thought it must be Kyoto we are going to.  The Shinkansen is very big and roomy – much more leg room than an aeroplane!  And a very wide walkway.  We had a sleep on the train, which we both needed.  As we pulled in to Kyoto, Kaoru started to get confused – she couldn’t imagine where else we could be going.  I did a bit more Hiragana reading on the train.

Eventually the train arrived at our destination – Hiroshima.  By the time we got out of the train station and found the hotel (which was next to the station – luckily), it was nearly 3.00 (check in time over here).  So we were able to go straight up to our room on the 18th floor, with a beautiful view of the city.

We had been sitting most of the day so needed some exercise.  So we grabbed a map from reception and started wandering.  We found Shukkeien – a beautiful Japanese garden to walk around.  We only had an hour before closing time, so we had to walk fast, but still took time to look and enjoy the scenery.

From there, we walked in to, and around, Hiroshima City.  On the way we found a wall full of vending machines, which I had to get a photo of.  We had eaten lunch at 12.30, so weren’t too hungry, but decided we should eat once it was 7.00.  We found an Okonomiyaki restaurant – the traditional food of Hiroshima.  I had eaten this once before – the first meal I had the first day Kaoru showed me around Tokyo, 6 months ago.  We were very full after eating it all, and the walk back to the hotel was good for working a bit of it off.