Hiroshima 広島

streets of Hiroshima

On our last day in Hiroshima, we decided to visit the Shukkeien Garden. This is a lovely small garden in the center of Hiroshima city, planned and built as a traditional Japanese garden in 1620.

I do not understand much of the architecture behind it, but I can appreciate that it makes for a wonderful escape in the busy city. In the garden there is even a tea house nearby where you can sit and relax.

In general the garden is arranged so that it seems a beautiful labyrinth a series of paths that take you around the garden, through bridges. I recommend a slow trip here and sitting down for a while and enjoying the place.

View of the Shukkeien Garden

We did not however enter that tea house, as we were getting slightly hungry we kept walking and eventually stopped for a snack in a local bakery.

Snack stop at a bakery near the garden

For the rest of the day we walked around and bought our souvenirs. As a sweet omiyage from Hiroshima we bought a box of Momiji maju cakes filled with different types of fillings, such as anko or chocolate.

Momiji cakes

After we lost ourselves in the covered shopping area in Hiroshima we decided to stop for dinner at the ベリーベリースープ 広島 (beri beri soup), a soup restaurant.

The restaurant ( picture from Google maps) and our soup served with rice and a little cream

At the end of the day, we packed our luggage and took the bus to Osaka. This time we decided to sleep one night in Kansai Airport to wait for our next flight to Sendai at six am.

There were many other people sleeping in the airport and staff from the airport was even giving away blankets. At night the police came to do a security check, but we had no problems.  Personally, I recommend that you sleep far away from the escalators… they talk all night…

waiting at the airport

Tourism

Hiroshima city has a loop bus, for which you can buy a day ticket for almost 4 dollars or by using the JR pass. This bus covers most of the tourist spots, going around from the station, through the peace park, the castle and garden, then taking you through a series of museums of which one of them is a little bit further from the center.

It really depends on what places you are planning to visit, for example, I really recommed taking this loop bus if you are planning to visit the Historical temple walk trail near the Toshogu Shrine, located behind the train station, and the Peace park in the same day. Even if you are comfortable walking, it will save you a lot of time.

You can check more info about this loop bus on the official webpage here.

The Shukkeien Garden is located 15 walk from the station and the entrance fee is around 2 dollars. The loop bus also stops next to it.

Hiroshima is a very good city to visit and stay if you are planning to do some day trips around this area, like the ones I mentioned before, including Miyajima island.  Its definitely a must see in Japan if you are traveling this area.

I have to say that sleeping in the Kansai airport was another unique experience. There were many other people spending the night there to catch low cost early flights, such as we were. If you decide to spend the night there, check with the airport information because if you arrive early you might be able to request a blanket.

During the night there was a police check, checking who we were, why we were there and which flight we would be catching. Overall I never felt in danger and as many things in Japan, it was quite safe.

What would I do differently

I wish that on this day someone had remembered to visit the epicentre of the Atomic Bomb. I guess everyone forgot about that…

Also… those noisy escalators in the airport… I would have chosen a different place to sleep!

Next Stop…

As we approach March we are getting closer to the time my internship finished. But before leaving, we had one last weekend trip to Kyoto, I will see how I can organize that

Hope everyone is doing well, thank you for reading and see you next week

じゃねー