This morning we were up and showered pretty early because we were to be on the Shinkansen from shin-Osaka at 8.40am. We caught the local train from Osaka straight to shin-Osaka where we found a large store, Eki Marche, which sold bento boxes (just as Chari said there would be). With the comprehensive description of the contents all in Japanese, we took a guess and picked bento boxes without seafood (Tom's preference), and we weren't sure if they were breakfast, lunch or dinner, but our breakfast they would be! We managed to easily eat them with the chopsticks provided, too, so we were happy! The Shinkansen really are a pleasure to ride - the people are all so quiet and polite. There are girls wearing little aprons pushing trolleys with food and drinks on them, and they announce themselves barely above a whisper so's not to disturb you. All trains play a few bars of music before they make announcements - one of yesterday's trains amused me because their chosen music was "we've been working on the railroad" - obviously a person with wit in charge! So we arrived in Hiroshima some two hours later, after hurtling through fields and past towns. Tom knew which exit to use from the station to find the "hop-on hop-off bus" so there was no drama finding that. The only drama was when an Australian family with children named Kyan and Storm got on. Storm was very badly behaved, standing on bus seats and peering at the Japanese people in the seat behind him, refusing to do as he's told and just generally being a brat, as his parents told him. I was soooo embarrassed - considering the number of Japanese children we saw at the aquarium yesterday, and how well behaved they were. We hopped off at the Peace Park where we meandered past the Atomic Bomb Dome, which was directly under the bomb when it detonated, so it didn't get blown sideways. There were many memorials all over the park commemorating the lives lost in the blast, and in the years after it. We looked at the cenotaph and then Tom went to the museum while I waited in the souvenir shop and mustered my courage to order a hot coffee from the vending machine. I didn't want to be saturated in senseless loss and sorrow. After Tom came back we crossed the road to the Sadako monument and read the tribute to that gorgeous little girl. The monument is surrounded by so money beautifully coloured paper cranes. After that we retraced our steps past the dome and back to the bus stop where we were picked up soon after. We then completed the tour so Hiroshima on the bus. We arrived back at the station well before we needed to, so we just hopped on an earlier Shinkansen in an unreserved carriage. This was a faster bullet train and took just over an hour to return to Osaka (281km). We caught a local train back to Osaka Station, where we went to the JR ticket office and booked our Shinkansen seats for the trip to Kyoto tomorrow and the the one for Tokyo a few days later. After that we explored the Daimaru store which is connected to the station and is just across the road from our hotel. We found a section that sells walking sticks, so Tom bought me a beautiful stick to ease my travels. He'd also read that they have extensive food courts two levels below the department store so we went to their basement floor and selected some beautiful fresh food for dinner, cooked as you order it. I think it was less than $20 for the two dishes of a variety of food. Random information - maybe TMI for some? The toilet seat in our hotel bathroom has another array of interesting functions (see pic below) but it has a sensor in the seat, so when you sit on it, it starts a vacuum fan that draws away the air, so there are no odours!! Amazing!!