Well here we are in Hiroshima! We are visiting our friends Alex & Eremi who live here. It's great to see them and they are looking after us very well (the translation facility is also very useful). We arrived yesterday by bullet train (Shankansen), which was quite a cool way to travel...I especially liked that the cleaning ladies wore a nice pink uniform more appropriate to serving ice-cream. I'm sure I'm supposed to talk about the fantastic aerodynamic shape and the fact we travelled at 300kph, but I'm not going to. We haven't seen much of Hiroshima yet on account of the fact that we were out until 07.00 this morning at a karaoke bar. We had the best time... there was no stopping Andy - he was on fire. It was one '80's track after the other (particular favourites to mention were "Last Christmas" and "Take on Me" - for a moment there I thought I'd brought Morten Harkett (or maybe Pals Waakatar) with me by accident. Em & Andrew will know what I mean when I say his enthusiasm was slightly reminiscent of Christmas Day and our epic charades evening. There was almost an incident when Andy and this Canadian bloke coudn't agree on whose turn it was - in the end I mediated and made them do a duet to ease the tension. I thought his hangover was terminal - he couldn't even eat his ramen, but it appears he has turned into a brave soldier and gone to the pub again (to watch the footie). So I'm home alone with free reign of the blog. I hope you enjoy the photographic footage of the evening.

I need to update you on our last few days in Tokyo before we proceed. We had a really great time in the most amazing city ever invented. There are basically two districts which everyone should visit to get the idea - Shibuya (where Lost in Translation was filmed) & Shinjuku. The neon is fantastic, frenetic, energetic and yet it remains organised and polite. Given that there are 12.2 million people in Tokyo, it was bizarre to see a group of people who were in the cheque-in queue at Heathrow in Shibuya's Starbucks! I would like to point out this is the first Western place we have visited. Andy has even managed to stay away from fry-ups (apart from the other morning when he had bacon & eggs with his rice & miso soup). I think this may have something to do with the fact he ate 7 fry ups in 10 days before we came away (yes Andy, I was counting).

We spent a lovely day in Ueno visiting the National Museum which held some fantastic exhibits (pottery from 10,000 B.C.), swords, kimono, old kabuki costumes, some wonderful Japanese art and a mummy. I love a good mummy. Andy finds them really boring but I think they're great. Then we went to the zoo (sorry if you don't agree with zoos - I suggest you read "The life of Pi" - it will make you feel better about them). Of course the polar bear and the seals were happy with the weather, but the monkeys and the elephant looked a bit miserable. Andy visibly cheered after visiting his cousins and we had a wonder around Ueno park which houses lovely gardens. We even managed to meet a scary hybrid of ourselves. Gave us a reminder to not reproduce.

The Tsukiji fish market is the largest fish market in the world. I have always loved visiting local markets, to give you a snapshot of the everyday. This was something else though! It was brilliant - a particular favourite was the fugu (blowfish). If you have seen that episode of the Simpsons, this will need little explanation. For those of you who haven't, fugu are a seasonal delicacy eaten more for the thrill than the taste. Within their livers and other organs, they contain a deadly neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin and if not prepared correctly, it will kill you slowly and painfully. Fugu chefs need to train for three years before they are licensed but perhaps the fatalities arise from D.I.Y. jobs. The Lonely Planet reassure us that the risk of poisoning is negligable, but Alex informs us that this season 9 people have died in Hiroshima alone. A famous Kabuki actor karked it after a fugu party in 1975, which sparked the rise of this devil-fish. Apparantly it "tastes like chicken" and costs about £50 a go, so I think we'll give it a miss and stick to the salmon.

In order to fulfil some requests for "robots," we headed for the Museum of Emerging Science & Technology. After a little trip across the bay by boat, we headed for a pleasingly futuristic-looking building which was the Fuji TV Japan Broadcast Centre. After walking past an exact replica of the Statue of Liberty and many floors up, we entered this ball-like suspension and looked out onto the rest of Toyko. Andy was clinging onto the walls for dear life - I think he enjoyed himself. The science museum indeed had some "humanoids" whose eyes scarily followed you around the room. Thank God we missed the once-daily demonstration of them running around the place. It was all a bit "I-Robot."

On the last night we ventured to Roppongi. I was determined to crack Andy's vertigo by taking him up the highest building available to us. We hunted out the Mori Atago building which houses a 360 degree observatory on it's 52nd floor. The view of Tokyo at night was amazing - it felt extremely weird being that high up. Poor Andy was beside himself and tried to make out it was the price of the beer in the (very swanky) bar.

So tomorrow we shall try to venture out before 5pm and do a spot of Hiroshima exploring . We walked through the Peace Memorial Park today and it felt very surreal. On 6th August 1945, Hiroshima became the first atomic-bomb target. The bomb exploded directly above the Industrial Promotion hall which now stands as the A-Bomb Dome as a constant reminder of the tradgedy. In the centre of the park, the Flame of Peace can be found. This burns constantly and will only be extinguished once the last nuclear weapon on earth has been destroyed.

The Children's Peace Memorial nearby was inspired by a little girl named Sadako who developed leukaemia as a result of the nuclear fall-out. She set out to make 1,000 oragami cranes - a task which she believed if completed would result in her survival. Sadly, Sadako died before she finished her project and so her classmates folded the rest in her honour. The crane is a symbol of longevity and happiness and long strings of them can be found on the memorial.