The last city on our list was Hiroshima. As you probably know, the city played a significant role in the events towards the end of World War II: It was the first city in history to be targeted by a nuclear weapon when the United States dropped the atomic bomb Little Boy on it on August 6, 1945. The blast directly killing an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought total casualties to 90,000–140,000. The population before the bombing was around 340,000 to 350,000.

Besides being part of history in this bizarre way, Hiroshima has little to offer for tourists. There is the Hiroshima Castle, but it’s just a reconstruction of the original castle, which was destroyed by the bomb. There’s also the Mazda Museum, if you’re interested in cars. But that’s about it. Still, you should visit Hiroshima, if nothing else just to see with your own two eyes how fucked up the human race really is. Wikipedia has an interesting article on debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that touches ethical, legal and military controversies.

After two nights in Hiroshima, we took the train back to Tokyo, we’re we spent another two nights before flying home.

If you are considering going to Japan yourself, stop considering it and just by the tickets. It’s a beautiful country and you’ll love it. You should know Japanese or English before going, though, because if you have no real means of communicating with people, you will probably end up feeling very lost at times, but literally and figuratively speaking. But with basic Japanese or English, you’re good to go. Also, I would probably recommend not going in July, it was unbelievably hot and humid. And do as much research as you can before you go, get an idea of what you want to see and why you want to see it. I recommend using japan-guide.com for this, it’s a fantastic site that contains everything you need to know about visiting Japan. Read as much as you can on japan-guide.com, they have a lot of essential information.

Bon voyage!