Japan Experience

Today we spent the day at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It was built to commemorate the explosion of the Atomic Bomb during World War 2. One of the aims of the museum is to abolish nuclear weapons and to promote world peace. The tone was somber as we walked through looking at Hiroshima before and after the tragedy. Belongings of the locals are placed throughout the museum giving you a connection to the people that had suffered through the disaster.

After the museum we continue to walk around the area and look at more of the memorial areas around the city. There are still some of the buildings that have not been reconstructed and are in a skeletal form. It has given the city an eery feeling.

We had returned to the hotel to pack our stuff from this amazing experience.

Today we had spent the day travelling from Kyoto to Hiroshima. We used the Shinkansen, the bullet train in Japan. The ride was approximately 2 hours. Upon our arrival we went to our hotel and decided to wonder around the city. We stumbled upon the Hiroshima Castle. It was reconstructed in 1958 after being destroyed by the Atomic Bomb and is now a museum showing life before World War 2.

The brand new day starts as we begin tour in Kyoto city important city of Japan. Morning tour we decided to go to Golden Pavilion, Nijo castle, Kyoto palace.
When we arrived to the Golden pavilion we found out place is a famous temple belonged to statesman and powerful shogunate after. When he died complex converted into temple. The temple itself built on the large pond and beautiful nature surrounding even has a fishing dock, very famous to tourists and Japanese attracting large of visitors annually. The temple two stories are covered in pure gold leaf hence the name comes in. Personally I loved it we walked to the surrounding and admired the view inside and outside even we tried fishing but it was boring.
After we done we went to see a Nijo castle another important attractions dated back to 16th century and built into flatland of Kyoto. The castle is consists of Ninomaru palace and Honmaru palace. Created during reign of Emperor Tokugawa Leyasu castle consists of inner and outer palace and many ponds and gardens are built around. Interior of castle is impressive beautifully decorated and quite spacious and many lantern hanging from walls.
Next stop Kyoto Imperial Palace, Ancient times emperors are take residence but gradually started to move to Tokyo palace. Palace is situated in Kyoto Gyoen consists of Sento gardens.

Our tour starts as we take the railway train to Kyoto one of major city of Japan. The Kyoto is beautiful city, like Tokyo, it has many districts with bustling people and market everything we even bought some foods and souvenirs for us and friends back home. After lunch we drive to Nara visiting Todaiji temple complex houses largest wooden building in the world, houses world’s largest bronze statue of Buddha Vairocana which were very impressive sight for us.

Travel continues as we see a Nara park eco themed park which I loved the waterfalls, Kasuga Taisha shrine after that we will transfer back to Kyoto and the remainder of the day was spent wondering around the city on our own.

Once we finished our breakfast we went to see Hakone national park. We watched animals and walked through a forest like environment. On the en route we rented car and drove through to see Mount Fuji to view the fantastic surroundings and it was awesome you can see all of Tokyo and beyond. Mt.Fuji is sacred to the Japanese people and if you are planning to go to top on foot be cautious I tried and nearly fell was the road is quite treacherous.

Later we enjoyed a cruise on Lake Ashi followed by cable car ride to top of Mount Komogatake to get a view of the summit. When we finished we went back to Hakone hotel which we rented and get ready to go to the beginning of the journey.