The A-Bomb Dome and snowy palm treesThe park holds many memorial monuments. There is the Flame of Peace, the Children's Peace Monument with thousands of paper cranes and the Cenotaph among others.
The CenotaphThe Peace Memorial Museum was educational and at times horrifying. We ended our visit to the city with a short detour to Hiroshima-jo Castle. Before bording the Shinkansen we once again visited the okonomiyaki restaurant for a take out lunch.
Himeji-jo Castle has stood outside Himeji city since 1581. It is considered one of Japan's most beautiful castles and we've been told over and over that we had to visit it on our trip. We got off at Himeji station and started walking towards where the castle should have been, but we couldn't see it. "It should be over there, but I can only see that ugly modern building" Caroline said. It turned out that the castle's main building, the six-story tower, was being restorated and covered with a huge tent structure. At least they had decorated the tent with a picture of the tower.
Outside the ticket office we saw a group of traditionally dressed warriors. While passing the group a man in ordinary clothes stopped us, grabbed Caroline's camera and assembled the group around us. He said lots of things in japanese while doing this, but we didn't understand one word of it. The picture turned out really nice though so I'm glad he stopped us.
Japanese warriors and bewildered touristsThere were still some nice parts of the castle to see. There were even slippers in large sizes! But the covered main donjon and the cold made the visit one of few disappointments on the trip so far.
Covered donjonAfter Himeji we travelled to Kyoto. The hotel is really nice and we will try their noodles for dinner.
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