Although I was quite exhausted from my day of sightseeing in 37 degree heat, I managed to have an interesting evening on my first day in Hiroshima. While checking my email in the hostel lounge I was approached by a Japanese man who claimed to be working for a local TV station that was doing a story on the ?guest house? I was staying in, which was apparently the first of its kind in the city. My job was to chat with some other guests in the hostel?s rooftop garden while being filmed from a neighbouring building. So I ended up meeting an interesting group of Danish girls on holiday and conversing with them for some time. Although I never saw the news story, there is little doubt that we are all thoroughly famous throughout the country now.

On my second day in Hiroshima I visited the national treasure known as Miyajima. Miyajima is a small island just off the coast of Hiroshima, about 15 minutes from the mainland by ferry. It is a popular tourist site, as I soon found out; there were tourists a plenty. The island is home to a famous shrine that features a giant ?floating? torii gate, apparently one of the top-three most photographed images in the country. To be truthful, the gate is rooted in the sand of the beach, but when the tide is high, it does appear to be almost floating. During my time there, however, the tide was out, which was actually a good thing, as it allows you to walk right up to the gate and get some extreme close-up photos. In addition to the close-ups, I also got a great picture of an enourmous Japanese tour group posing for the camera (not mine), complete with local deer, of which there were many.

I spent a good 4 hours or so, longer than I had planned, walking around and seeing the various sites. Among them, many temples and shrines, a 5-storied pagoda, Buddhist chanting hall and in classic Japanese style, many gift shops. When I?d had my fill, I headed back to the hostel, and then on to the next stop on my journey, a much smaller town called Kurashiki.