Day Three, to Hiroshima

We got up after a surprisingly magnificent 8 hours of sleep, and packed up ready to move on to our next destination, Hiroshima. It's the furthest away from Tokyo that we are planning to go, so decided to go all the way there in one long train ride, and then have a more leisurely

return, visiting places we didn't stop on the way out.

In the morning at Ueno station in Tokyo. The group of people on the left are gathered in the smoking area, which has a row of trees, presumably to soak up the fumes!

Tom trying to look inconspicuous so I could get a photo of the smoking area at closer range!

Snacks for the journey! The big pastry thing is some kind of croissanty bread thing, and the other is a rice ball.

A carton of lemon juice, which was rather tasty!

VIews from the train. I was surprised how golden brown the fields in Japan are at this time of year. It reminds me of the grass we had in Britain at the end of our long drought this summer- but here it hasnt been that dry, as there has been snow. Can you spot Mt Fuji in the background? 

The landscape along the southern coast seems to consist predominantly of large flat expanses of land, which are either paddy fields, or tightly packed cities. The paddy fields appear to have gated water tracks running around the fields, so they can choose to flood and drain the fields.

In the further background (to the North) you can see the mountains rising up, contrasting with the very flat lands before them.

It's always good when a diagram helps you understand a hazard!

Lots of train tracks!

Even though it was a journey of several hours on the train, it was interesting to look out and see the landscape changing from countryside to city, and back. The buildings are all different sizes, shapes and colours, with some looking very 'state-of-the-art', and others quite the opposite.

In Hiroshima we had time for an explore before food. We picked up a tourist map, and wandered down the city streets and to a park. The park was on one of those 'too steep to build on' areas, but helpfully they had installed escalators to get you to the top, like in a shopping centre! It was a contrast to peep through the trees and see big city buildings sprawling out for miles around.

We decided to sample okonomiyaki for tea, which is served in many restaurants in Hiroshima. It is noodle based, with something like an omelette on top. You can then choose different dressings and extras if you want as well. The chopsticks in this restaurant were challenging, as they were softly curved to their tips, rather than having a straight edge, which meant when you held them side by side, the tips weren't touching. More refinement of my skills is needed!

We enjoyed using the 'magic five' dressing, which squirted out in five dainty lines, instead of the usual mono-squirt sauce bottle.

Today's toilet feature! The restaurant had a surprisingly decorative bathroom suite!

                                      

A nice Japanese feature are their decorative man hole covers! I've been told to look out for them. This is the best I've seen so far!