Tokyo to Hiroshima

Posted on 2008/03/23 01:04:20 (March 2008).

[Tuesday 18th March]
After spending the first three nights in Tokyo, the next bit of our holiday in Japan would be five nights staying with Chie's family in Hiroshima. So today we checked out of our hotel in Ikebukuro - which had served us very well (£50 a night!) and headed for the station.

On some of my earlier trips to Japan I'd used a Japan Rail Pass which gives you pretty much unlimited rail travel for a 7 day period at a very reasonable price. It's a great deal for foreign tourists, but usually not available to Japanese people. Having read the small print though, Chie had discovered that Japanese people with certain type of foreign visa were eligible, and effectively now that we were married she could get one. Being both frugally minded and a bit of a closet train geek she was very pleased about this!

So the first port of call today, after a spot of breakfast, was to go to Ikebukuro station and exchange our JR pass orders (you have to get these outside of Japan) for the actual passes. We then headed down to Shinagawa to get on the shinkansen, by way of Shinjuku where we stopped off to buy lunch at our old favourite bento place, a sort of health food shop called Bonraspail.

We then got on the Shinkansen just after 12. It was great tobe back on the Shinksansen - I love these trains, they're so smooth and comfortable, and even after seven years of using them the novelty hasn't really worn off.

There were certain Shinkansens we couldn't use with the JR pass, which meant we had to change trains at Shin-Osaka, but that was no great bother. By 5 o clock we were in Hiroshima, and Chie's Dad met us at the station.

Had a fairly quiet evening in following that, enjoyed Chie's Mums' excellent home cooking for dinner, and relaxed in the now very familiar surroundings of Chie's family home.

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