October 20th (Hiroshima)

Today, our train was in the afternoon so we decided to visit something before we left. We ate breakfast, checked out and left our luggage at the hotel as we went to visit Nagoya castle.

It was my first visit of a Japanese castle. I had seen so many of them in pictures or "anime" (Japanese cartoon) and read so much about them that it was really cool to finally visit one.

The garden surrounding the castle was very beautiful but it's probably a hundred times more beautiful in spring (all the plants were pretty dry because of autumn). The way that Japanese gardens are laid out just inspires me.

Spider in the garden

From Trip to Japan

The castle itself had been mostly destroyed in WWII but the city and it's people plan to bring it back to it's former glory. It's coming along pretty well, I think only the palace is missing (we visited the dungeon and the guard towers).

Castle guard tower

From Trip to Japan

Flower statues

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Dungeon

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

The roof if the 7 story dungeon is adorned with 2 golden dolphins that are the pride and emblem if the city. Inside the dungeon, there's an exposition on life back then and info about the history of the castle. We were lucky enough to be in Nagoya at the same time that they were showing some sliding doors of the palace that had been saved by the fire. Those doors are only exposed around this time of year each year.

One of the dolphins

From Trip to Japan

A copy of one of the sliding doors

From Trip to Japan

After the visit, we hurried back to hotel and took cab to "Nagoya eki" (Nagoya train station). While we waited for our train, we ate an "ekibento" which is kinda like a lunch box sold in train station. Those same kinds of lunchboxes are called "obento" when sold in stores. It had like 12 compartments, each containing a small portion of different foods (squid, rice, omelet, vegetable, etc).

I took my first shinkansen (bullet train) around 2pm and it sure beats the TGV. They can go as fast as 300km/h, the ride is super smooth and they never had a fatality in 30 years of service.

My first shinkansen

From Trip to Japan

In the train

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Picture of japanese money

From Trip to Japan

Side note about Japanese toilets. Everywhere, even in public places, the western style toilets have heated seats and "bidet" functions (pressured water can be ejected from the front or rear of the toilet to clean you). I don't know why we don't have that in Canada!!! Some toilets even have a small sinc on top of the toilet so you can rince your hands after flushing. The weird part though is that they also still use (and install) Japanese style toilets. They're kinda like an oval "hole" on the ground that has the ability to flush. Why use this when you could use a western style bowl? It's beyond my comprehension. Another small thing I noticed is that a lot of toilets don't have anything to dry your hands after you wash them. I think it's environment friendly and that, when you think about it, it doesn't really mater if your hands are wet for 1 more minute.

When we arrived in Hiroshima, we took the team to reach our hostel. It was brand new and we could rent private rooms. Japanese style private rooms :D

The "clerk" had very good english and there were a lot of backpackers from different countries that were also staying there. There was a good ambiance to the place.

Our room

From Trip to Japan

One of the specialties in Hiroshima are "kaki" ( oysters in Japanese, not the fruit) so we decided to try a suggestion from the tourist map.

It was a kind of fancy restaurant on a docked boat where the waitresses serve you in kimono and never turn their back to you (old school style). I decided to invite Nath to a treat and we chose the 8 course diner. All of them had oysters in them except for a broth (that they had forgotten to bring us until Nath told them while showing the pictures she had took of the food we ate). For drink, we had "umeshu" (plum wine) that had a Porto taste (it was fucking great) and sake (ditto). It was expensive but worth it. I'll keep a very good memory of that meal and it was the first time I ate oysters (other then canned smoked oysters).

Nata-chan at the restaurant

From Trip to Japan

Toothpick box (I took the picture for you dad :P)

From Trip to Japan

Kaki (oyster)

From Trip to Japan

The restaurant itself

From Trip to Japan

After supper we went for stroll in peace memorial park. Nath said a very good French joke that can't be translated because it's a play on words:" C'est un chien japonais qui dit a un autre chien japonais: Japon!". OK, it's a "drunk" funny joke but I really liked it.

Street lamp

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We took many pictures of the A-bomb dome, a building near the hypocenter of where the bomb hit that is being kept exactly as it was as a reminder of what nuclear weapons can do.

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

From Trip to Japan

Kittens playing in a tree

From Trip to Japan

We saw a couple of statues and Nath stepped in the stagnant water of the peace memorial ark because it was shallow and there was little light, hehe.