We shopped in the morning, going completely nuts in stored like Big Camera, which is a 10-story building filled with every kind of electronics you could imagine – for insanely cheap prices.

We then caught a train and cable car up in the mountains to Koya-San, a Buddhist community, for out temple stay evening. After we booked into our temple and were shown our traditional-style room, we walked around town. It was a lot colder up in the mountains, but also really beautiful. We checked out the cemetery, which was huge and filled with ancient trees and headstones covered in moss.

For dinner we ate traditional Buddhist vegetarian food (no meat, no seafood, no onion, no garlic) which included lots of tofu and strange things we couldn’t identify. It was served with great ceremony by two of the monks, who then returned later to lay out our futons.

The only down-side for me was the lack of private bathrooms. There were shared co-ed toilets and a communal bath. I wasn’t adventurous to try this, but Alec did, late at night when there was no-one else around, and he said it was amazing.

The day was overcast, but with only a short time to fit everything in we decided to catch the train down to Hiroshima. We stopped off at the A-Dome and Peace Park Memorial before catching a train and ferry to Miyajima island. The dreary day meant bad weather for taking pretty photos of the cherry blossoms that were out in full bloom. We did see some crazy scatty deer on the island … they weren’t as cute as Bambi unfortunately.

I’m loving how friendly all of the people here are and even if they can’t speak English they go out of their way to try and communicate. All I can say is “thank you”, and I’m saying it over and over again every five minutes to more strangers who are helping us out.

Food though is hard. Everything is written in Japanese characters and the pictures aren’t clear, so it’s tough finding places to eat thus far. I had hoped to lose weight on this trip, but just not eating full-stop is not what I had in mind!