1. hiroshima and miyajima

Golden Week.

Part 1.

Golden Week is a week of national holidays. It is also the big cherry blossom week/excuse to hit the sake extra hard while 'appreciating nature'....right. Anyways, before the times of El Nino, 'sakura' could be seen all over Japan during this week. Things were a bit ahead of schedule in southern Japan, but we were able to catch the tail end of it in Hiroshima. But it wasn't sakura that brought us hundreds and hundreds of miles away from Iwate....it was the chance to see the best sights in Japan. A 1 hour local train, 10 hour overnite bus to Tokyo and 4 hour bullet train brings us to destination number one: Hiroshima.

The national monument memorializing those lost during the A-bomb attack. The museum was quite emotional and the entire mood of the city quite sombering and strangely....peaceful.

Next stop was this famous bridge outside of Hiroshima. Pretty cool, but the renovation price tag of $1.5 million dollars seemed a bit steep. Pictured above are Derlee (a fellow Minnesotan JET teaching in southern Iwate) and my friend Tomoko (who is moving back to Minnesota this month!) Tomoko was a fabulous tour guide and so helpful! We really appreciated having her! And I'm so excited that we will be neighbors in a few months! Congratulations Tomoko and Ken! :)

Miyajima was the MOST incredible place. The torii is HUGE and when the tide is out, you can walk right up to it. Miyajima is one of the most recognized sights in all of Japan...and while sometimes these "top such and such places" listed in Japanese travel books are not all they are cracked up to be....this time, they were RIGHT on. BEAUTIFUL!

If you have some extra time, CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE

to view the rest of the pics!