Today (Monday) is a holiday in Japan, so we (Martin and me) took the opportunity and used the long weekend for our biggest trip so far: We visited Hiroshima, Kyoto and Nara. I’ll try to recap what we experienced on these days, but we have seen so much, it’s hard to remember everything. I am here for only a month now, but I am already getting this weird sightseeing overdose where you can’t really remember anymore what you have seen where. But I’ll do my best.
On Friday evening (after work), we took a night bus to Hiroshima. In case you haven’t currently memorized the geography of Japan (how dare you!), Hiroshima is waaaaaay over to the south-west from Tokyo (I think it’s like 800 or 900 kilometers). Going by bus therefore means going by nightfall, because it takes you like 11 hours or something and you don’t want to waste a day for that. Luckily, we booked the “stylish bus” (no kidding). It had stylish seats which gave me the worst pain in the back ever (I really mean my back here). But they were stylish!! Anyway, arriving in Hiroshima, the weather was so bad, I think my mood couldn’t have been any worse after that night with much pain and few sleep. Luckily, the sky cleared out after a while. Anyway, our first target was to visit the island of Miyajima, according to my travel guide one of the three most beautiful places in all of Japan. I forgot what the other two are, but Miyajima is beautiful. We travelled there by Speed Boat from Hiroshima Port (takes about 50-something minutes). Our mood quickly got much better, and the sun finally started shining, giving us some impressive views of the island’s sightseeing spots. Its most famous one is o-torii, a very popular Torii which is actually built off-shore! Usually, Torii mark the entrance to Shinto shrines, which means they’re on solid ground. Another very remarkable thing about Miyajima is that it’s full of tame deer, and they roam the streets completely freely. I mean completely freely, you run into them at literally every corner. (See the Wikipedia article on Miyajima for more background info.) The island has a somewhat mediterranean flair, almost like the Greek islands, just that it has temples, shrines, … and deer.
After leaving Miyajima we went back to Hiroshima City for the rest of the day, to do some sightseeing of a completely different kind: See the A-Bomb Dome and the Peace Memorial Museum. This was tough. I don’t know, but actually standing in front of the dome made my blood freeze. It really lets you realize how terribly unhuman humans actually are. The museum is very good at providing the related historical and political background information surrounding this horrible event. If you actually see with your own eyes the tattered clothes of a child that has been killed by the atomic bomb attack, it becomes more than just something you read in a history book.
In the evening, we left for Kyoto with the Shinkansen.
We stayed at “Kyoto Cheapest Inn”, the cheapest hostel in Kyoto, or at least they claim it to be. It was really cool, we met a guy from Chile — his name is Juan — who was currently touring Japan. Because Juan also wanted to visit Nara the next day, we went together. I don’t know, there is not much to tell about Nara, it is really over-hyped in my opinion. It is a city near Kyoto (like 30 minutes by train) and is famous for its temples, but I think Kyoto delivers much more in that regard. Nara on the other hand has this temple with the biggest Buddha statue in all of Japan, which is really impressive, but that’s about it. 
The surrounding park area wasn’t particularly interesting either. Maybe, I even suspect some form of “conditioning” here. I have seen so many temples, shrines and pagodas here, it’s hard to get impressed anymore. In the evening, Juans and our ways parted (but we already plan to meet him again in Tokyo next week) because he hadn’t seen Miyajima yet and so he left for Hiroshima that evening (where we had already been).
The third and last day (today) we dedicated completely to Kyoto. Like Nara, Kyoto itself isn’t particularly interesting, let alone beautiful, but it has some very remarkable temples and shrines. I think Kyoto is like THE city in Japan for visiting shrines and temples. It actually has over 2000 of them! One of the more remarkable ones is a golden temple, which is a really beautiful sight, especially when hit by run rays. Another highlight is Kiyomizu-dera which is actually a really huge temple site located on the slopes of a small mountain. You have a very nice sight over Kyoto from there. In the evening, we left for Tokyo, again with Shinkansen. It’s so fast, it only took like 2.5 hours.
Now I’m kinda tired, and I think I’ll go to bed, if you excuse me. For all pictures, see below.
Hiroshima and Nara picture gallery
Miyajima picture gallery
Kyoto picture gallery
Nippon Express - 80 Days in Tokyo 