A tourist in Hiroshima

I am here in Japan for the CMC meeting Monday and Tuesday and I have some free time on Wednesday so I decided to come down to Hiroshima (site of the world's first atomic bombing) to see the peace park. Turns out there are two world heritage sites here, the site of the bombing and Miyajima and island said to be home of a goddess. I'll try to post again after I visit.

I came to Hiroshima from Kyoto on the Shinkansen (aka the bullet train). Here it is leaving pulling away from me. But it looks the same on each end so it could equally well be coming toward me. Each train runs back and forth on the same route without turning around so the same end of the train is always toward Tokyo and the other end always toward Hakata, the other end of the line for the train I was on. I took a look of pictures out the window but the train was moving to fast and they are mostly blurry.


This lady stood on the platform outside the engine on the rear of the train watching her watch. When it was time to leave she climbed in, leaned out the window, holding her hat so it would not blow away and the train immediately began to move.

This was inside the train station. I think it must be class trip week in Japan because I saw many groups of school children like this mostly sitting neatly in rows waiting. Occasionally there was a group all moving in mass to catch a train I suppose. The seemed much quieter and more orderly than I would expect American students to be. It must be the uniforms.