Arigato Japan

More Japanese facts:
1. It isn't really called Japan. It's called Nippon. Japan is what we call it for some reason, it does sound better though.
2. Japan is made up of 4 main islands. It also consists of many smaller ones too, 3,000 in fact!

Although the place can be hectic and in your face it doesn't take long to get away from it all, as we found at Mount Fuji. The people on the whole are really friendly and try and help, unlike in China when sometimes you walk into a place the staff literally run off into a back room rather than deal with you!
There's no-one trying to sell you stuff, no-one staring at you and you're definitely not a target for con-men in such a strong economy. The food is great, unless you don't like fish as it seems most dishes are based around anything that lives in the sea. There are loads of good looking women everywhere, which always helps, and everything is generally very clean and well organised. These guys know what they're doing and the transport around the places are an example of that. It's streets ahead of England. But there are many similarities with good ole blighty that also make the place really cool. I'd love to go back to Japan and miss it immensely. The best in Asia so far!

Japanese fast food. Cheap and great!
Japanese beer. Fair cheap and great!

Hiroshima

Hiroshima is world famous for all the wrong reasons. It was the first place to be hit with a nuclear bomb in warfare.
It may seem a bit of a morbid place to choose to visit but it wasn't like that at all. It was more a look into human survival under the worst possible circumstances as well as the idiocy of world leaders that made it fascinating. Aswell as how humans bounce back and rebuild their lives and cities.
Living in Hiroshima means you can never forget the war and the devastating effect it had here. There's trams running through the city and one of the main stops is called 'The atomic bomb dome'. This is the point, or 300 metres from the actual point, where the atomic bomb exploded. There is a building on this spot, the dome itself, which survived the blast and was quite odd as they've left it standing reminder in it's exact ruined form. You can not ignore this every single day. You must get used to the sight of it but as a tourist it's quite odd seeing it in such a modern city. Of course the city itself has to be quite modern as it was totally flattened during the second world war.
The museum was really moving and detailed the after effects and the causes leading upto the explosion.
Hiroshima was chosen as a target because of it's large military base. Everybody in the town had to help out in the war effort which was really crippling the people living there. Not only that but it was chosen after a process of elimination from an original 11 targets. On the day any one of 5 targets could've been hit but Hiroshima had the best weather on the morning of the 6th of August 1945. At 8:15am the B-52 American bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare over the city. It detonated 600 metres above the ground wiping out 200,000 people and completely flattening 4km of the city. The radiation from the blast affected people 6km away and survivors still carry medical books so the Americans could see the after effects that a nuclear bombs have on people.
Temperatures rose up to 4,000 degrees Celsius and many artifacts have been kept in the museum a d are on display. It's a grim site. Many photos from the blast show the starkness of the place and the people. There's a stone step, which used to be in front of a bank, that has the shadow of a human burnt into it from the blinding blast.
Loads of other information about the effect of nuclear radiation on humans is on display, some of it pretty horrific, as well as info about the bombs themselves and the countries that stockpile them.
Japan during the war were run by an total mentalist leader. This guy banned freedom of thought. This meant that if you had any ideas that went against the government you could be shopped in by someone and immediately killed. After the bombing of Hiroshima the Japanese still did not surrender and one day later another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. It still took another 2 weeks for the surrender. The museum did focus a lot on how the Americans had not given enough warning for the bombs but never really focused too much on the unbelievable atrocities the Japanese army were committing throughout the war.
The area around the museum is now called the Peace Park and is dedicated to the survivors and those who perished.
The city has rebuilt and become modern but still in a traditional Japanese way so some parts of it still look as good as Kyoto.
We were totally loving Japan at this point and every place we'd visit we'd wish we could stay longer.
Next and final Japanese stop is Osaka!
Above is Hiroshima castle. Obviously it's not old due to the bomb but it doesn't make it less beautiful. We strolled through it, watch out for crabs nipping your feet!!!