In Japan - Hiroshima

"An employee of the JR Shinkansen train company stands inside their store at Hiroshima station, Monday, Dec. 29, 2008."

The journey continues and so does the horrific jeg lag. While I am again adjusting to the 14-hour time difference, it's still nearly impossible to keep my eyes open, no matter how exciting things are, past 8 p.m. local time here in southern Japan.

As I make my way up the main island of Honshu (from Kyushu, the third-largest island of Japan, yesterday) I first made a one-day stop in Hiroshima.

I left Fukuoka this morning and took the Shinkansen JR train to my hotel, which is a traditional tatami floor room and pretty amazing to say the least. But since I only sleep in it, it's not worth embellishing at this point in the trip.

The main reason for staying in Hiroshima was to visit what most call and rank as one of the top three scenic places in Japan - Miyajima.

About 30 minutes from Hiroshima, Miyajima is an island located at the terminal of Miyajimaguchi. Since it's surrounded by water, you have to take a ferry to get there.

It's a little, old village that had free roaming deer (no Lymes Disease thankfully) and a vast history dating back to 806 AD.

It was really, really fascinating. The floating torii (or big orange gate) of the shrine, is Miyajima's best known symbol. It is also host to the World's Largest Spatula or rice scraper, which I was totally joking about being the biggest spoon and just read in my visitors guide that it is.

For lunch I had devoured a pork cutlet odon (rice bowl) with a raw egg over rice.

Well, I could ramble on forever about this place. It was down right awesome and worth the trip. But the other reason for staying in Hiroshima was, well, to see Hiroshima.

Obviously the story with this city is the fact that is was the first city in history subjected to nuclear warfare when it was bombed by the United States of America during World War II.

With that, we visited the Atomic Bomb Dome. It gave me a feeling like the 9/11 memorial in New York City. Quiet and somber.

It was an odd feeling standing there as just about the only American around and knowing that nearly 350,000 Japanese lost their lives when this city was basically obliterated by a bomb. It's crazy to think it's been rebuilt, to..

Well, I can't take typing anymore at this table which is maybe a foot high.

Other than my back and legs hurting, after walking from 10 a.m., I am exhausted.

Tomorrow I'll pack my backpack and head to Kyoto and then to Osaka for a couple of days.

I'll try and post tomorrow (I already missed a day). Hopefully I'll have a chance to. Stay tuned.