Friday, March 13 8:00 am (it is 5:00pm in Denver). We are approaching the port in Hiroshima - it is gray, foggy, and raining. COLD Part of our scheduled tour is a 2 mile walk… I’m debating whether to go…. I really want to ride the bullet train, but the walk doesn’t sound appealing.
Our weather was beautiful yesterday, cold (35F) early and about 50F at 1:00 when we returned to the ship but the sun was shining. Last night we cruised the Inland Sea which would have been great in the daylight with all the islands, boats and towns along the way.
There were 60 people on our tour and divided into two coaches so they weren’t full. We left the ship and went directly to the train station for our bullet train ride to Iwakuni to visit the Kintai Bridge and Samari houses. The train is fantastic - comfortable and quiet; no clacking along the rails. Our ride was only 20 minutes and there were many tunnels through the mountains. The speed was about 200MPH. Amtrak needs to go this way and maybe people will actually take trains again… I probably would.
Our weather was beautiful yesterday, cold (35F) early and about 50F at 1:00 when we returned to the ship but the sun was shining. Last night we cruised the Inland Sea which would have been great in the daylight with all the islands, boats and towns along the way.
There were 60 people on our tour and divided into two coaches so they weren’t full. We left the ship and went directly to the train station for our bullet train ride to Iwakuni to visit the Kintai Bridge and Samari houses. The train is fantastic - comfortable and quiet; no clacking along the rails. Our ride was only 20 minutes and there were many tunnels through the mountains. The speed was about 200MPH. Amtrak needs to go this way and maybe people will actually take trains again… I probably would.
In Iwakuni we had a short coach ride to the bridge which has three large curved spans and two smaller ones. The frame is built without nails. Very impressive. It was raining and the sky was very gray and foggy but I took a number of pictures - the umbrellas sort of added to the ambiance. We crossed the bridge and wandered a bit among some shops and houses and then returned to the bus to get out of the rain.
We then went to the Aki Grande Hotel for lunch. The lunch was completely laid out for us when we arrived and consisted of many different little dishes… kind of a taster meal. It was quite good. Jim even ate the sashimi… he said it was like fish flavored bubble gum. (He’s one of those that wants food cooked!) 
After lunch we had a ride through the countryside back to Hiroshima and a stop at Peace Park for the A-bomb dome. There isn’t much that can be said about the dome; it is a silent reminder of the power of nuclear weapons. Then we went back to the ship. Good ship tour - I’ll give it an A. The weather was bad but so far we have been very lucky and our bad weather has pretty much been sea days.
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