Himeji-jo, Hiroshima and Nara, Japan

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After spending a week in Kyoto I brought a railpass and did a couple of day trips before heading up to Tokyo. The trains are so fast that you can cover a lot of ground in one day.

My first trip was to a nearby town called Nara with Hannah, who I had met on the boat coming over. Nara is Japan's first capital and is the number two tourist attraction in the Kansai region of Japan after Kyoto. Nara is a lovely town with quaint shopping streets and parks and also has a further 8 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We spent the day wandering around a large park area called Nara-Koen at the foot of Wakakusa-yama mountain. The park is home to 1200 deer that are so tame that you can approach them so we had some fun taking pictures of them. According to my guide book in pre-buddhist times deer were considered messengers of the gods and today they enjoy the status of national treasures in Japan.

There were a lot of temples to see in Nara but we went only to the main one called Todai-Ji which is Nara's star attraction. Inside the main hall of the temple there is an enormous bronze buddha. The hall itself is the largest wooden building in the world.

On my second day with the railpass I headed west of Kyoto to a visit Himeji castle, considered the most magnificent in Japan. In the afternoon I went to Hiroshima, to the site of the world's first atomic bomb. Hiroshima has been completely rebuilt and is now a bustling attractive city. In the centre of the city, where the bomb was dropped, a peace memorial park has been created. One of the few buildings left partially standing was the old Industrial Promotion Hall. After much debate in Japan about whether to tear the building down, as some considered it a constant reminder of that day's events, it has now been preserved, you can see the pictures of it below. The rest of the park is very pleasant and there are several museums and memorials to the bomb victims. There were lots of visitors and school groups at the park and it was quite a moving place to visit. The main museum was very interesting and although many of the displays showed horrific photos and accounts of the victims, I felt that the museum overall has a really positive message of peace. When I left the museum I was approached by several groups of schoolchildren who wanted me to fill out a questionnaire about my thoughts of the museum so I have a few pictures of them below too.

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