Hiroshima

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I haven't written since Thursday because this weekend we decided to head to Hiroshima for one more little jaunt. Here's what I've been up to since then...

Thursday- Lunch at Mangaria was really good. I met Gregg, his friend and her friend there at 12:30. Then her friend left and Gregg went back to work and I went shopping with her in Takamatsu. At night we ate some pretty good macaroni from Italy.

Friday- I woke up late and met Gregg at 12:10 at the school that he spends most of his time at. He showed me around, I met some of his colleagues and eventually we went to the language lab where 4 of his female students were waiting. School was not in session but there were many students to be seen. Some were playing baseball or basketball and the ones that Gregg are working with over the summer are practicing for an English speaking contest and in the afternoon they were going work on costumes for something in the fall. The students were nervous to meet me so we all introduced ourselves to break the ice a little. Then they kindly worked out the Kanji for Sue and Susan. There were many choices like 'master of planet' and 'striking with honesty' but we eventually settled on 'cute rabbit' haha and they girls took turns writing it out on a large sheet of paper. It was really nice. They were really sweet and calm for teens...

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While I had a load of laundry going, I rode Gregg's bike in the sweltering heat for 45 minutes looking for a mega sega arcade to no avail. I thought I was going to burn up but I was determined. Eventually I had to give up and head back to Gregg's... He got home from work and we caught a 5:10 train to Takamatsu. Then we caught a different train to Okayama. Then we took the bullet train again to Hiroshima Station. Lots of public transportation but it sure is convenient. We stayed at the Hiroshima Grand Intelligent Hotel haha. We checked in and then went to a building that has floor after floor of Okonomiyaki which is an elaborate savory pancake kinda thing that I had in Kyoto? but Hiroshima's are different. Each city or region in Japan is famous for a certain dish. In Gregg's town they eat udon (thick round noodles) like once a day. In Hiroshima their Okonomiyaki is one layer of thin pancake, I chose a layer of soba (thinner noodles) and cheese, some cabbage, spices and a thin layer of egg. Then they put a brown sauce and mayo on top. It was challenging to eat with chopsticks but good!!

Saturday- We went to a great place called Miyajima or Itsukushima Island. We took a short ferry to get there and as you pull up you can see this lovely torii in the water. Actually, it is surrounded by water when the tide is high (like when we arrived) but when we were leaving the tide was low so people were walking out to it. I can't put these last photos up because my batteries are dead but I will def show you when I get back! For now if you want look at this link to get an idea of what it was like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itsukushima

It was nice day except I felt bad for the deer there who seemed to be starving. In Nara, vendors sold food that you could feed the deer so they seemed less desperate.

We started strong but as this trip has gone on, it was obvious we were getting worn out haha. After the island we went back to the hotel to rest. We grabbed a snack in a French style cafe in Hiroshima Station because we didn't want to be late for some fireworks. We got there just in time to grab a drink at the convenience store and find a spot to watch. The fireworks were very impressive, they lasted one whole hour long!

The fireworks were just outside the city. When we got back to Hiroshima, we went to a bar called Opium and had pizza. It was really cool because it was a small room and two of the four walls were glass and you could see out over the street at night. Then we went to another place called the Shack and ate some chicken fingers too!

Sunday- We checked out but the hotel let us keep our bags there all day which was awesome. First we went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Obviously it was quite sad. After the museum we walked through Peace Park where there were many memorials. The children's memorial was the saddest and it showcased hundreds of strings of paper cranes.

"The Children's Peace Monument is a statue dedicated to the memory of the children who died as a result of the bombing. The statue is of a girl with outstretched arms with a folded paper crane rising above her. The statue is based on the true story of Sadako Sasaki(佐々木禎子,Sasaki Sadako),

a young girl who died from radiation from the bomb. She believed that if she folded 1,000 paper cranes she would be cured. To this day, people (mostly children) from around the world fold cranes and send them to Hiroshima where they are placed near the statue. The statue has a continuously replenished collection of folded cranes nearby" At the end of the park is the A-Bomb Dome which " is the skeletal ruins of the former Industrial Promotion Hall. It is the building closest to the hypocenter of the nuclear bomb

that remained at least partially standing. It was left how it was after the bombing in memory of the casualties. The A-Bomb Dome, to which a sense of sacredness and transcendence has been attributed, is situated in a distant ceremonial view that is visible from the Peace Memorial Park’s central cenotaph. It is an officially designated site of memory for the nation’s and humanity’s collectively shared heritage of catastrophe." Then just steps from the A-Bomb Dome, I went to my first baseball game...

The Hiroshima Carp scored no runs while I was there but it was really fun. The crowd was very organized in their cheering and even had different chants for different batters. In the seventh inning, just about everyone in the stadium blew up a huge balloon and then the mascot came out, sang a song and everyone let go of the balloons. It looked really cool. Didn't get a photo tho :(

Speaking of photos, I'm going to put two photos on here that I didn't take... That's all for now...

xo