Start of Obon and off to Hiroshima

So I'm not going to claim to know all about Obon, or even if I'm spelling that anywhere near right. I was heartily laughed at when I mistakenly called it: Udon, a type of food here. So Obon is something like a national holiday for all government workers, I'd assume. Its 3-5 days of summer vacation, that can be taken from a certain time of summer, to another certain time of summer. I don't know, anyways, its cool, and I spent my Obon, or Odon, or however you say it in Tokyo. But the Shinkansen (fast train) tickets were super super expensive, because EVERYONE travels during Obon...so we took a NIGHT BUS, departing from Hiroshima at 7:30p, and arriving in Tokyo sometime the next morning. This night-bus up was TERRIBLE, but more about that later.

Because our bus didn't depart until the evening, we decided to go early in the morning, and spend the day in Hiroshima. This lush green countryside is a view from our train, on the way up to Hiroshima. Hiroshima is about 2 and a half hours by local train from Hofu.