Gaelec's Blog: October 21st (Hiroshima)

We took our time getting up. Drank some coffee and browsed the net a little.

We left the hostel around 10am, bought some things to eat for breakfast and went back to Peace Memorial Park to visit the museum.

The visit was very interesting and disturbing. I had water in my eyes a couple of times. It's crazy how much destruction was caused by this bomb. And it wasn't even that powerful. There was a bit too much repetition in the visit. I don't know how many times it was written that the bomb exploded on August 6th at 8h15am. I bought myself a souvenir at the shop. It's a very popular manga (japanese comic book) named "Barefoot Gen". They had it in English so I bought the first 2 books of 6. It's printed in the US so I shouldn't have too much trouble getting the rest. It's the story of people living WWII and the impact of the A-bomb that was dropped in Hiroshima (maybe it also talks about the one dropped on Nagasaki but I don't know).

It's funny, there's one thing I didn't like about the museum (and maybe a bit about the city). It's that there were too many foreign tourists and it made me feel less in Japan.

After the museum, we went to see the peace bell that we had missed the previous night and then took the tram and a ferry to go to Miyajima.

The peace bell

From Trip to Japan

Before we took the ferry, I ate Hiroshima's special dessert called "momiji-manju". It's a small cake in the shape of a maple leaf with different kinds of fillings. I ate one with red bean paste and another with custard. The cake itself tasted a bit like angel cake.

And speaking of maple leaf, it seemed to be Hiroshima's mascot. They were selling cute maple leaf plushes. I almost bought one just because it was so cute.

Kawaii !!! (cute in japanese)

From Trip to Japan

Miyajima is an island in the Hiroshima bay that has a big torii in the water(a shinto shrine gate). There's also the Itsukushima-jinja shrine on the island that is part of the UNESCO world heritage list.

Entrance to a ryokan on Miyajima

From Trip to Japan

The floating torii

From Trip to Japan

Inside the shrine

From Trip to Japan

A crab eating !

From Trip to Japan

A REALLY steep bridge

From Trip to Japan

World's largest rice spoon

From Trip to Japan

The shrine and floating torii were marvelous. We stayed until the sun set cuddling and taking pictures of the torii.

From Trip to Japan

Hawk perched on the floating torii watching a bug

From Trip to Japan

Heron perched on the floating torii

From Trip to Japan

We headed back downtown to eat one of Hiroshima's specialties: okonomi-yaki. They have that dish in other cities but in Hiroshima they also put noodles in it. It's kind of like a pizza. Some ingredients vary but in my case it was a pancake at the bottom and over it they put lettuce, noodles, shrimps, squid, bacon, an egg (cooked like an omelette), green onions, scallops and a special sauce.

We walked back to the hostel by passing through a covered pedestrian street that was also a mall. I couldn't resist entering a Taito arcade that only had machine where you control a claw to try to get your prize. The was a super cute bean plush that I tried to get but didn't :( Nath tried to get a blanket, actually got it but the claw didn't drop the prize in the middle on that machine but on a side panel and it didn't fall... We left with our hopes crushed and our hearts broken.

Crocs (I know how some of you like them :P)