We got up early and got ready, it was too early so we skipped breakfast again. We walked from Piece Hostel Kyoto to Kyoto Station. We used our Japan Rail Pass 🔗 for seats reservations for the long distance trains for today. The plan was to visit Hiroshima and Miyajima (also known as Itsukushima) and then head to Kagoshima.

Our first journey would take us from Kyoto to Hiroshima on the Hikari 491 which operated on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen line till Shin-Osaka and then on the San’yō Shinkansen line till Hiroshima. This was the fastest Shinkansen ride during our trip covering a distance of 380.6 kms in 1 hour 44 minutes with average speed of 219.58 kmph. After reaching Hiroshima Station, we visited the Hiroshima Tourist Information to buy the Visit Hiroshima Tourist Pass for the day. Seeing that we were foreign visitors who had just arrived by train, the staff confirmed that we could use the Hiroshima Sightseeing Loop Bus to visit all the placed we had planned and that it was included with our Japan Rail Pass 🔗. We then went to the baggage lockers to leave our bags there before heading out and taking the Sightseeing Loop Bus.

Our first stop was the Atomic Bomb Dome. Because the explosion took place almost directly above this building, the walls remained largely intact, even as the dome shattered. The skeletal remains of this building are one of the the most recognizable symbol of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima. We also saw the Students Peace Monument which commemorates the students who were conscripted to work in factories and were killed by the atomic bomb.

We walked across the Motoyasu Bridge to the Peace Memorial Park. We saw the Children’s Peace Monument surrounded by thousands of origami paper cranes folded by schoolchildren across Japan in memory of the children who died. The Atomic Bomb Memorial Burial Mound holds the ashes of bomb victims who were unidentified/unclaimed. Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Cenotaph was erected in memory of forced laborers from Korea who were working in Hiroshima at the time of the attack.

We saw the Hiroshima Victims Memorial Cenotaph which was a stone chest with a registry that contained the names of every known person who died from the bombing, regardless of nationality. Across the Pond of Peace was the Flame of Peace intended to burn until the last nuclear weapon from earth is gone. We could also see the Atomic Bomb Dome in the distance. The Statue of a Prayer for Peace and Monument of Prayer were on either side.

We visited the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall. The entrance of the museum lead downward to a quiet hall for contemplation. There were also kiosks with stories and recollections from survivors. We stood there listing to the narration of one of the stories of little boy looking for his brother; it was extremely sad and we couldn’t bring ourselves to listen to any more.

Seeing all the monuments and then finally listening to a real story, the visit to Hiroshima was more heartrending than we had anticipated. After that we didn’t really feel like visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum to see more. We walked across the Prayer Fountain and the Statue of Mother and Child in the Storm and took the JR Loop Bus back to Hiroshima Station.

For lunch we wanted to try the Hiroshima specialty, Okonomiyaki. There were a few places at the Hiroshima Station which were serving this and after looking around we decided to go to Fuku-chan near the south exit of the station. There was a long wait here, like most places around, but looking back that was probably a good thing. It gave us time to clear our head and talk about other things and build up an appetite by the time we got seated. Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savory pancake containing a variety of ingredients that are layered in a wheat-flour based batter. Translated it roughly means okonomi ‘what you like’ and yaki ‘cooked’. It was fun to watch them prepare the dish on the live counter and it was very scrumptious.

After lunch we took the JR Sanyo Line for Onoura from Hiroshima and it took about half an hour to get to Miyajimaguchi. The train station was a few minutes walk from the JR Miyajima Ferry. The ferry ride was about 10 minutes and we got good views of the Itsukushima Floating Torii Gate from the water.

The Itsukushima Shrine is famous for the Torii that appears to be floating at high tide, when the tide is low, it is approachable by foot from the island.

If you are an old Hindi movie/music buff and you might remember it from the beautiful Mohammad Rafi number ओ मेरे शाह-ए-खूबाँ from the film Love in Tokyo.

Being one of the most popular tourist attractions in Japan, there was a huge line inside the Itsukushima Shrine to reach the end of the pier and take the perfect picture. We decided to walk around instead of just standing in line. There were deer roaming around on the streets at a few places and many shops selling food stuff and souvenirs. We saw the Toyokuni Shrine Five-Story Pagoda and got many views of the Itsukushima Floating Torii Gate from other vantage points.

We took the JR Miyajima Ferry back to Miyajimaguchi and then took the train on the JR Sanyo Line towards Itozaki. The train as quite crowded and there was barely enough place to even stand. Luckily we didn’t have any issues getting down at Hiroshima Station.

We picked up our bags from the luggage lockers and boarded the Sakura 567 at 6:38 PM from Hiroshima to Kagoshima-Chūō. It was operated by the N700-8000 series trainset and ran on the San’yō Shinkansen line till Hakata and then on the Kyūshū Shinkansen line till Kagoshima-Chūō. Surprisingly, the standard-class reserved car had a seating configuration of 2-2 so the seats were as spacious as the green car seats and probably almost as comfortable as well. The standard-class unreserved seating configuration was 2-3, similar to what we had seen on both reserved and unreserved Shinkansen coaches till now. We covered a distance of 569.6 kms in 2 hour 49 minutes with average speed of 202.22 kmph.

We reached Kagoshima-Chūō a little before 9:30 PM and then walked to our hotel Toyoko Inn. We chose this place because it was close to Kagoshima-Chūō Station, literally less than 2 minutes away by walk. We were going to stay here for two night and had made two separate bookings. They were not able to give us the same room for both night because we had made reservations in two categories at two different prices and the hotel was fully booked. Nonetheless the room we were assigend was bigger than any room we had seen in Japan so far. It had two beds and decent sized bathroom.

🍽️ Fuku-chan Hiroshima Station South Exit
🚍 Hiroshima Sightseeing Loop Bus
⛴️ JR Miyajima Ferry
🛏️ Toyoko Inn Kagoshima