The stay in Hiroshima started really well with the baseball game we went to on our first night. The crowd were well up for it and there where "high-5's" all round when the Carp scored a home run. In the middle of one of the sets, or innings or rounds, (whatever!) the crowd started to blow up these very phallic looking pink balloons and then everyone started singing a song. At the crescendo everyone with a balloon let it fly off into the air so there was a huge swarm of giant pink mickeys floating in the twilight. It was a very surreal sight! The next day we went all over Hiroshima city on bike. Elaine is so brave!. We saw the A-Bomb Dome, the site were, on 6th August 1945, the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima. It's a very eerie place, this huge concrete skeleton sitting as a reminder in the midst of a huge green park teeming with tourists. After that we headed to Hiroshima Castle which had some nice displays of samurai swords, but I wasn't allowed take photos :(

The next day took us out to Miyajima, an island just outside Hiroshima city. There's the famous floating torii and lots of very tame deer roaming around the island. There bloody cheeky too, one tried to steal my lunch! After heading back to our hostel we had just enough energy to try ordering some Japanese food and were rewarded for our efforts with a really delicious meal of okonomiyaki, which is a weird pancake, with noodles, cabbage, bacon and BBQ sauce. I know it sounds terrible but it was delicious!

Check out the photos on Flickr.

So we headed down to Kyoto for a few days and finally got to use our JR Pass on a Bullet Train! Whooooooooooo!!!!! That thing makes the DART look like a thing that's really slow… oh wait… it is really slow! The bullet trains (or shinkansen in Japanese) can get up to about 300km/h, at which point everything becomes a blur and goes to plaid. They might look like giant white tampons but they're still cool and strangely sexy. Real tampons are icky…

After getting in to Kyoto we had a bit of a wander around trying to see some geishas but we didn't spot any, until a few days later on the bus! Kyoto is famous for it's temples and shrines, so we headed for a wander around Fushimi Inari, a shrine dedicated to the Japanese god of business. Companies and businesses donate the massive gates – called torii – as a way of bringing good fortune. These line the path up and around the hills so it's like walking in a weird orange tunnel in some parts. We also spent a while wandering around Kyoto station (mostly trying to find a toilet) which is a really impressive piece of modern architecture with one of the scariest escalator rides I've ever been on. We contemplated life for a while in the Zen Garden of Ryokan-ji, but that gave me a headache so I had the tiniest pint of Guinness ever. I know things are smaller in Japan, but this is ridiculous!

Have a goo on Flickr and let me know what ye think.

Phnom Penh is a bit of a contradiction, as is most of Cambodia – the people are so friendly, but they also want your money, there's amazing evidence of the glorious Ankgorian era everywhere and also the brutal legacy of Khmer Rouge. It's very odd to walk around a city and not see any people over the age of 50 or so.

During our stay in the capital we went to the Killing Fields and Toul Sleng Genocide Museum, where thousands of people were tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge. It wasn't sonething you'ld really call a nice day trip, but it's a massive part of the history, society and culture here, so it was warranted. I felt slightly self-concious as a tourist to be walking over mass-graves and looking at the caved in skulls of innocent victims. Our guide was really appreciative that we had taken the time to learn about the history of his country and what happened to so many people, and however emotionally draining the experience was, it was worth it in the end.

in stark contrast to that was the Royal Palace, an improbable mix of Angkorian and French colonial architecture. We sweated buckets walking around but got some breezy relief afterwards in our tuk tuk. Ah the tuk tuk, moto-driven chariot of the Walking ATM (AKA a tourist). It's quite odd to be such a tourist, everyone wants you to buy from them or eat their food, or ride in their tuk tuk, as long as you have the Almighty Dollar handy.

More photos on Flickr