Seconds after taking our seats, the sleek, white, dolphin-nosed shinkansen train set off from Tokyo central station on our route to Hiroshima. The first part of the journey took us through lots of built up areas, but eventually into more rural areas with views of the coast.

I spent the first few hours of the journey looking at the scenery whizzing by, and writing about our time in Tokyo, before we arrived at Shin-Osaka station and had to change trains. After a couple of minutes we were on another shinkansen for the final leg of our journey to Hiroshima. For most of this leg I slept, waking up as we were passing through countryside dotted here and there with clusters of houses, some old and some new, but most with a very traditional Japanese look. Steep forested hills rose up a short distance from the train, surrounding the plains these houses were built on.

We pulled into Hiroshima perfectly on time, having enjoyed our first shinkansen experience. Hefting our massive bags on, we set out from the station to our hostel, a short walk away. The afternoon heat was once again intense and the air humid, but not quite as bad as it had been in Tokyo, which was a relief. Nevertheless, it was an uncomfortable sweaty slog to the hostel, up and down some stairs through a subway to crossing a main road, then along the street, following the city's tram lines in the hot sunshine before our turn off.

We made it to the hostel, K's House Hiroshima in one piece though, glad to step into the air conditioned lobby. After registering and picking up our key, we got the elevator up to our private room (booked due to lack of cheaper dorm rooms) on the 4th floor. It was really nice to walk into our own room with air conditioning, an en suite and a big double bed. We had originally planned to move to a dorm the following night, but later arranged to stay in our double room another night.

We relaxed for a bit in the cool room, watching some crazy Japanese kid's programmes on TV, then decided to head out for dinner. In the lobby, we enquired about places nearby specialising in okonomiyaki, a dish consisting of thin pancakes filled with pork, eggs and a variety of other fillings but in Hiroshima also filled with noodles, and topped with a sweet and tasty sauce and spicy mayonnaise.

The girl in the reception directed us to a place just around the corner from the hostel which had a deal on for 80¥ drinks (around 65p!). We made our way to the restaurant, finding the evening much cooler than the daytime unlike in Tokyo, and were seated at the counter in front of the huge teppans (Big metal hotplates which all the food is sizzled on) the chefs were cooking on.

There were also tables and traditional Japanese style seating on tatami mats but we were happy to sit at the counter watching all the delicious-looking food being cooked. We ordered some 80¥ beers and perused the menu. I chose a seafood okonomiyaki with squid, shrimp and scallops as well as the usual pork and egg, and Lucy ordered a similar pancake-style thing topped with pork, egg and a mountain of spring onions but without noodles inside it.

The food arrived and we got stuck in, finding it absolutely delicious, as we had with all the food so far in Japan. We couldn't help but notice as we were eating, all the other amazing dishes the chefs were preparing on the teppan and serving on tin foil to be brought to customer's teppan-equipped tables or served in front of them at the counter.

Although the okonomiyaki was delicious, we still had room for more and decided to order some asparagus wrapped in bacon that we'd seen being prepared. This we also thoroughly enjoyed, and washed down with some more ridiculously cheap beer.

We had a couple more drinks as the price was so good, then left to walk back to the hostel. We had showers and browsed the internet on the free wifi provided in the rooms, before heading off to sleep.

We woke well rested in the morning, Lucy had a quick shower, then we walked to the tram stop around the corner from the hostel. We were prepared for the exhausting heat and humidity of the last few days but found it once again much more bearable. We hopped on a tram which took us west, down one of the main streets into the town centre, then got off in the main shopping area and found a cafe near the end of Hondori, a long covered shopping arcade.

We had a quick pastry and iced coffee and tea for breakfast then continued west on foot, shortly emerging from the built-up town centre beside one of the strands of the river, the delta of which the city is built on. Just down the bank from us was our first destination for the day, the A-bomb Dome, and across a nearby bridge was the large and airy Peace Memorial Park.

We went to check out the A-bomb Dome, which stands as one of many monuments to the horrendous atomic bomb attack carried out against the city in 1945. The ruins of the building, which was once an elegant, copper-domed European style building, have been preserved exactly as they were just after the detonation of the bomb, which occurred 600m above the city, almost directly above the dome. The ruined shell stood in stark contrast to the modern development all around it, only adding to its impact.

After looking around the dome and taking some pictures, we walked across the bridge into the Peace Memorial Park which occupies a large area of land directly under the site of the atmoic bomb detonation. The park is a very pretty, airy place with wide plazas, tree lined paths and numerous memorials and monuments related to the bombing.

The first memorial we stopped at was the children's memorial, erected in memory of children killed or injured as a result of the bombing. This monument was inspired by one young victim who, after growing up healthily for 8 years following the bombing, contracted leukaemia at age 10 and died shortly after. Before she died, the little girl hoped to fold 1000 paper cranes as she believed this would allow her wish to become better to come true. Sadly, she died before she could complete the 1000 cranes, but her classmates continued folding the cranes in memory of her. This story has gone on to inspire thousands of people from all over the world to fold paper cranes in memory of the victims and in hopes of the dream of world peace one day coming true. There were display cabinets all around the memorial completely filled with thousands upon thousands of colourful paper cranes arranged into all sorts of patterns and messages all calling for peace. It was quite a moving sight, one of many that day.

From the children's memorial, we walked down the wide avenues of the park past the flame of peace, a torch which will continue to burn until the last nuclear weapon on earth is destroyed, a day I hope we will see soon. Beyond this was the elegant stone cenotaph in memory of the victims of the bombing, where memorial services are held every August 6th, a day we had just missed.

We walked across a wide open plaza from here to the Peace Memorial Museum in the park, and spent the next few hours walking through its thought provoking and harrowing exhibits. The first part of the museum gave the history of Hiroshima leading up to the bombing, as well as Japan's involvement in the war leading up to this point, then showed a scale model of the city before and after the bomb. The destruction was unbelievable, with the city completely levelled for miles around the hypocentre of the explosion. However, this destruction is nothing compared to that which could be caused by the nuclear weapons the various nations of the world are currently armed with, as described in the next area of the museum. Here, there were also records of world efforts towards nuclear disarmament and peace.

Across a large walkway with view over the park, we entered the 2nd building which dealt with the actual bombing on a more personal scale, with accounts of various victims' horrific fates and, most harrowing of all, actual items of their clothing, personal effects, and most morbidly some hair cuttings kept as mementoes. A diorama here showed victims just after the bombing, lost in the rubble of the city with nowhere to go, their skin burnt and hanging from their blackened bodies. These displays, accompanied by the audio guide recounting survivors experiences, really made it hit home how utterly horrific the destruction of an entire city like that would be, though it is impossible to really imagine how it would have felt to be there. I hope no city in the world ever has to go through anything similar.

Beyond the victims' personal effects, there were displays of items from the city showing the effects of the bomb's massive power, such as iron doors bent completely out of shape, roof tiles melted and fused together like lumps of hardened lava, and concrete walls pierced through by shards of flying glass. A further exhibit on the effects of the radiation from the bomb, still affecting survivors to this day, cemented the utter horror and inhumanity of these weapons in our minds.

We left the museum quite affected by what we had seen and heard, and able to see why the calls for nuclear disarmament are so important. However, we still had more to see in the memorial park, so we continued through the afternoon heat through trees filled with big, noisy cicadas to the Peace Memorial Hall, a stunningly designed circular underground hall accessed by a spiral concrete walkway. In the hall itself, a quiet fountain bubbles in the centre, circular but with a cutaway area in the shape of clock hands at 8:15, the time of the bombing, whilst the walls surrounding it are made up of a 360° panoramic mosaic of the city following the blast, made of 140,000 tiles to represent the 140,000 people who were killed.

From the peaceful Memorial Hall, an escalator took us up to a room where probably the most thought provoking displays of the day were. In the room, survivors first-hand accounts of the aftermath of the bombing were available to read, and it was these accounts, filled with the individuals emotions and descriptions of their horrific experiences, which I found the most moving.

Leaving the memorial, we walked back down through the park amongst the cicada-filled trees, across a bridge onto the wide Peace Boulevard, the city centre's other main street. We walked down the street, marvelling at the tall, modern buildings after seeing what the city was like after the bombing.

We found our way to a little restaurant a street back from the Peace Boulevard called Hassei, a little place recommended in the guide book for Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. We ordered some spinach with bacon, some sliced potatoes topped with asparagus and melted cheese, and one big okonomiyaki, all cooked on the big teppan, to share. The food was absolutely delicious, and we left completely stuffed.

From the restaurant, we crossed Peace Boulevard and walked up through the town centre, filled with bars, shops and restaurants and bustling with life. We walked through the long, covered shopping arcade nipping in and out of shops to have a look at clothes and other fun stuff, as well as into one huge toy shop which was filled with lots of cool things.

After an hour or so walking around the shops, we stopped for an iced coffee to cool down, then continued walking through the arcade, eventually emerging on another main street. We found an Irish bar and decided to check it out as it had a happy hour on. Unfortunately the drinks were still expensive, but it was nice to take the weight off our feet and relax with a cool beer, although we had to put up with an annoying American standing up at the bar talking at the loudest possible volume to his companion about inane rubbish.

After our beer, we left the bar and walked through the 'entertainment district' between the town centre and the area our hostel was in. This area was filled with narrow streets with lots and lots of neon everywhere, tons of tiny restaurants, bars, gentlemen's' clubs and love hotels. The area was busy with mainly Japanese out for the evening.

On our way through the streets, we decided to go into a pachinko place to try out the famous Japanese pinball-style game. A huge hall was lined with the brightly decorated, flashing and incredibly noisy circular pachinko machines, with loads of Japanese sitting in front of them. We figured out how to put money into a machine, which then produced a number of small metal balls in a trough at the bottom of the machine. The attendant showed us how to turn a dial to adjust the power with which the balls were flung into the circle, and we sat for a few minutes, bewildered, flinging balls into the circle of the machine, which would tumble down, bouncing off various pins before disappearing out the bottom of the machine. Somehow, some of the balls would do something which resulted in more balls popping out into the trough, but we basically had no idea what we were doing, and it wasn't long before all our balls had disappeared. We decided if we were going to try pachinko again, we'd better read up a bit on it first.

We left the pachinko place and continued walking home through the entertainment district, across a wide bridge, then back to the hostel. Lucy got on Skype to her mum and sisters, while I had a shower then went downstairs to put on some laundry. After Lucy' mammoth 2 ½ hour Skype call and with the clothes all cleaned, we read in bed for a bit before falling asleep.

We got up early the next morning, packed our bags then dropped our big rucksacks off in the luggage room of the hostel before heading to the train station with our smaller bags.

We left the small bags in lockers at the station, grabbed some breakfast at a food court inside the station, then went and booked tickets for a shinkansen that evening to Kyoto. We then headed for a local train which took us out to Miyajimaguchi, about 25 minutes from Hiroshima. The train was completely packed with tourists, both foreign and Japanese, but we squeezed on and were soon approaching our destination, with a view out to the sea and the rugged, forested island of Miyajima, our final destination.

Once off the train, we flocked with the rest of the passengers to the nearby ferry terminal, and hopped on the ferry which took us across to nearby Miyajima. On the short ride, we had a great view of the mountainous island as we approached it, with its small town along the edge of the water, and the huge shrine of Itsukushima-jinja, like a big temple complex in an inlet from the sea, with a big red torii gate a distance out in the water.

Once off the ferry, we walked with the throngs of tourists along the waterfront past numerous souvenirs shops and little cafes and restaurants. We stopped at one stall to buy a shaved-ice-topped-with-fruit-syrup thing, which provided a welcome antidote to the hot, moist air. However, it also attracted the attentions of the island's local residents, the deer who walk the street of the town looking for food and lounge around under the trees. One very persistent deer kept approaching Lucy, much to her distress and my amusement, but on the whole the deer were rather cute and totally harmless.

When we reached the shrine, which is built on stilts on the seabed, the tide was out sadly, meaning the shrine was standing on a wide mud flat dotted with paddlers and lots of little crabs. At high tide the shrine apparently seems to float on the water, which would have been nice to see.

Nevertheless, the shrine was pretty and we paid our entrance fee and walked around its wooden walkways between the little pagoda style buildings, looking at the various statues dotted around. On the far side of the shrine there were various traditional looking temples and other shrines which we looked around, before heading for the narrow, souvenir shop-lined streets back towards the ferry. On the way, we stopped to try some oysters, a local speciality which you could buy grilled from a number of little barbecue stalls, or in one of the many restaurants in the town. The big oysters were delicious, but didn't quite satisfy our appetites, so we continued through the streets, taking a detour up some steep steps to a 5-storey pagoda and a big, airy wooden temple overlooking the area.

From the temple, we descended more steep stone stairs into a covered shopping street, with yet more souvenir shops, loads and loads of little shops with machines making Japanese style sweets, and some restaurants. We found one restaurant and gladly escaped the heat and the crowds to sit and eat some tasty food, including some tempura vegetables and prawns and rice topped with boiled oysters for me and katsu curry (breaded pork with curry sauce) for Lucy.

After lunch we meandered back through the shops then along the waterfront past the deer, to the ferry. Another ice cream was in order, purely to keep our core temperatures down of course. Once again, this attracted the deer but we made it back to the ferry without having to fight any.

We then replayed our journey to the island in reverse, with a busy ferry followed by a busy train back to Hiroshima. Back in town we wandered to the hostel to pick up our bags, lamenting once again the incredible size and weight of our rucksacks, a particular nuisance in the hot and wet air. We were looking forward more and more to sending all our warm weather clothes home.

We jumped on a tram from the hostel back to the main station, picked up our other bags and, since we'd arrived a bit early, tried to change our tickets to an earlier train. No seats were available, so we went to a Starbucks to sit and wait for our train, reading up a bit on Kyoto, our next destination. Eventually it was time to head to our train and as usual, it turned up perfectly on time, gliding into the station.

We hopped on board and had a short trip to Shin-Osaka where we changed for the train to Kyoto. An hour and a bit later we were there, bang on time.