We’re just settling in to our room in the Hotel Granvia Hiroshima, after spending the morning and early afternoon wandering around in the hills and browsing the tourist gift shops in Miyajima.

The morning had been pretty strenuous by our standards. We were up quite early, as breakfast is served here at 8pm sharp so it’s a use it or loose it situation (our host “Grandmother” Fumiko gently reminded us of this by knocking on our door at 08:01 precisely).

Thankfully, breakfast wasn’t the same multi-course culinary juggernaught as it was at dinner, consisting of toast, eggs, jam and coffee (just the way I like it) and after a little bit more faffing around in our room we started our journey up the mountain.

We decided to get the cable-car up part of the way. which was about 10 minute’s walk from the Royuken (or as the signs said, “7 if run a little!”), which gave us plenty of opportunity to admire the tastefully landscaped woodland surroundings. As in Hong Kong, I found the cable car trip particularly hairy, so you can imagine my utter delight to find that we had to take two to get where we were going. Still, all that vertigo inducing ropeway riding was far more enjoyable than walking all the way there.

The cable-car dropped us off about a kilometre from the peak and we were greeted by dozens of short-tailed Macaques, running around and generally causing mischief - quite possibly vying for morsels of food we might’ve had on us. We had a brief pause to look around the rocky, white granite landscape where there were some fantastic, almost panoramic views out Hiroshima and the coast.

Although it was only a kilometre up to the peak, it was quite an incline and took us nearly 30 minutes to get to the top. We were given a respite about halfway up where we stopped to admire the temple with Kobo Daishi’s pot, containing a fire he lit 1200 years ago that has apparently been burning continuously ever since*.

Tripping down the mountain was much easier than coming up, and rather than risking food overload at the Royuken we had lunch in Miyajima, eating at restaurant owned by a sweet little lady who was only too happy to serve us, despite not speaking a word of English.

Collecting our bags, we headed back to the mainland to pick up our next train to Hiroshima.

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*It was also used to light the flame at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima