Kobe and Hiroshima

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Only spent a few days in Kobe famous of course for its beef and a huge earthquake in the 90s, fingers crossed that doesn't repeat itself. Spent new year here which was a fairly quiet affair. The temple/shrine across the road from my hotel had turned its grounds into a sort of food stall extravaganza selling all manner of tasty treats so spent most of the night mouching around there. Spent some time down on Kobe waterfront where among other things they have left a small section of it unrepaired to show the damage caused by the 91 quake.

Up until now I have been using local trains and the subway to get around as the distances have been short but as Hiroshima is a couple of hundred miles away I took the famous Japanese Shikansen (Bullet Train). There more like a plane than a train inside and at over 300km an hour it feels like your flying.

Hiroshima is only really known for one thing I suppose and thats having the worlds first A-bomb dropped on it. You would expect it to be quite a sombre place with a history like that but not a bit of it its a lively, fun exciting place. That said, its not ignored, and there is a large area given over to a Peace park which as well as memorials to those who died has the Peace Memorial Museum in its grounds. Part of the museum was closed for an upgrade while I was there which was a shame but what was open was very interesting. The park was built on what was roughly the epicentre of where the bomb exploded, apparently even though only seventy odd years have passed there is no residual radiation.....I hope thats true.

I have more to write but the blog site, my WiFi or the some other gremlin keeps crashing me out so before it sends me mad i'll finish now publish this and start again soon.

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