On my way to the southern islands of Japan I've been doing a 1 day stopover in two major cities along the Shinkansen train line: Hiroshima and Fukuoka.

Hiroshima

My original plan was to spend my day in Hiroshima on the nearby island of Miyajima. Unfortunately, this got cancelled due to bad weather: it was basically raining until 5:30pm. Too bad.

Instead I spent most of the day in the Hondori shopping arcade, got food at the Okonomimura (aka. Okonomiyaki Village, a 3 stories building full of Hiroshima-style Okonomiyaki) and then went visiting the Peace Memorial Park.

I also spent some time in the National Peace Memorial for the Atomic Bomb Victims. The building recounts the history of the Hiroshima bombing, and provides access to the stories of many survivors and people close to victims from the war. Kind of a sad place, but still very interesting to learn more about these events.

Fukuoka

I had very much no plans about what to do for my one afternoon in Fukuoka, so I decided to go to the Uminonakamichi park north of the city, rent a bike, and just cycle around for a bit.

The park was really nice: it's surrounded by the sea on both sides, the biking infrastructure is really good (they recommend visitors to use bikes since the park area is pretty big) and there were quite a few beautiful views.

But on top of that, in the middle of the park is the "Animal Forest", basically a small zoo with free admission for park visitors. Monkeys, flamingos, rabbits, kangaroos, llamas, etc.

And of course, in the evening I had to try the local Fukuoka ramen!

Tomorrow I'm taking a train south to the port of Kagoshima to the island of Yakushima for some forest hiking. Fun times ahead!