Across the river from the A Bomb Dome lies the Peace Park,which contains a number of poignant memorials. The photo at bottom shows the memorial museum, not much to look at from the outside, but a very powerful series of exhibits, movies, photos etc. about the day Hiroshima disappeared. Also in the park is a memorial to the 75,000 people who died that day and the 200,000 who died later from the radiation. Top left is the memorial to the most famous victim, Sadako, who was 2 years old when the bomb fell. She survived but got leukemia when she was ten. According to Japanese legend, if you make 1,000 paper cranes you'll get a wish granted. Unfortunately she died before completing them all, so her friends finished them and she was buried with the cranes. The paper crane has become a symbol of peace, and students all over Japan and overseas send millions of cranes to Hiroshima every year, which are displayed in the park. The park also has a peace flame that will burn until the last nuclear weapon is gone. Moving on to happier subjects...

23. Hiroshima

Aided by this helpful photo of the bullet train, I'm much clearer on our schedule the next day. Took the amazing train to Hiroshima, a couple hours' south of Kyoto. Hiroshima is one of the few cities in the world whose name will always be connected with tragedy. It's not an obvious choice to include on a holiday, but it's a fascinating place and I really recommend it. It doesn't really lend itself to a breezy vacation blog, though, so I'll move through it quickly. At right is the A Bomb dome. It's the only building left standing after the atom bomb leveled the city, and is left in its ruined state as a memorial.