WOW! Been a bit since I updated, eh?
Well, maybe not so long for you guys, but my days have been really
full, and internet access has been spotty. I haven't really seen any
wireless access points in Japan, probably because everyone has
internet and email on their cell phones.

Well, we took a sleeper train from
Tokyo to Hiroshima, which was kinda fun. Each room had 4 beds, 2 top
bunks and 2 bottom. I was on a top bunk. The beds were small with
thin mattresses, actually a lot like jail beds---but with better
pillows. there was also a curtain on rails you could pull around each
bed; very convenient. The scary thing was the only toilet on the
train was a squatter, but luckily neither of us needed to use it.
Squatter+Train=Mess

Eventually we arrived in Hiroshima on a
nice, rainy morning. As we lacked any umbrella-type implement, we
asked a lady running a snack shop at the station where could buy
some. She didn't speak English, but after we made ourselves
understood, she began rummaging around in the back of her booth,
triumphantly emerging with two umbrellas, which she then presented to
us---no charge. Apparently in Japan, being a rainy island country,
umbrellas are cheap, plentiful, and all of indeterminate ownership.
For instance, our hotel had a umbrella holder out front from which
everyone just took a random umbrella if they needed one.

The main type of public transportation
in Hiroshima is the streetcar, somewhat like SLC's Trax system. After
puzzling though the maps of the streetcar station in front of the
train station, we (eventually) figured out how to get to the stop
near our hotel, which was only a few blocks from the streetcar line.
We arrived in Hiroshima very early in the morning, so we were very
early checking in to our hotel.

Here's The nice fire dog who lived outside our hotel room door.

And here's our hotel room, complete with tatami mat floors and futon beds (folded up in this picture, of course). The first thing we did was take a nap---neither of us slept well on the train. Then we got up and decided to go see the WWII museum and memorials. I have a million or so picturs of this, so for now I'll just post a few:

The "A-bomb dome", famous for being the closest building that survived the blast, it is now preserved as a monument to the horrors of atomic warfare.

This is a picture of the cenotaph with all the vicitms names, and through the cenotaph the A-bomb dome can be seen in the distance, and inbetween them directly in line is the flame that shall never be extinguished as long as a single atomic weapon remains.

Here is the childrens memorial, in the clear plastic rooms around it are paper cranes folded by school children, sent from every corner of the world.

A LOT of paper cranes.

The peace bell. It...uh..rings for peace and stuff. And we rang it!

This is the memorial for all the Koreans that died in the atomic bomb explosions. Apparently, quite a few non-Japanese were caught in the blast, mostly P.O.W.s from Korea and China who were forced into labor camps.

A watch, stopped at the time of the nuclear blast.

A picture of the newly-devistated Hiroshima.

Before and after models.

That's all I'm posting about the WWII museum, more stuff later.