Hiroshima!

08.01.2012 - 10.01.2012
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I had no idea what to expect when we arrived in Hiroshima - I couldn`t imagine how it had recovered after the horrific bombing in 1945. However, I was surprised to see that the city was thriving. It had a very foreign influence when it came to shops and food, giving it a very cool vibe. The clubbing scene was also thriving there, as they had embraced the idea of foreign bars - which are cheaper and less exclusive than Japanese style bars. Because of this, we ended up feeling like we had to sample the local night life. Drinking doesn`t seem that much of a big deal as it is at home, so the bar man was increasingly shocked as we ordered more and more vodka red bulls.

Tom disappeared towards the end of the night as a result of too much vodka (lightweight.) I had lots of Japanese people coming up to me signing wildly and we managed to bridge the translation gap and figure out that they were trying to say to me "Your boyfriend is asleep in a ditch outside." After 2 hours of being a supportive girlfriend whilst trying to persuade Tom to get out of the garage he`d decided to live in, we managed to crawl home at 5am and snuck into our dorm room without waking anyone up...until I fell over my bag and had "what the hell is going on" shouted at me in 5 different languages.

We were both feeling fragile the next morning so didn`t emerge from our pits till the afternoon when I claimed I was desperate for hangover-cure fish and chips. . . not really going to happen in Japan.

We went to the peace park and museum for the A-Bomb. It`s dedicated to stopping the use of atomic bombs anywhere in the world. It`s really eye-opening to see how many bombs America, France and even the U.K drop for experiments - what on earth could they be achieving?! We left both feeling shaken and upset at what this city had been through.