As previously mentioned in my last post, last weekend marked my second visit to wonderful Hiroshima city. I had been wanting to write about our trip there since I returned but there has just been no time. I've been going out of town very frequently the last few months. That has definitely been a big, positive change from life back home, and even life back in Korea. While living in Seoul, it was just so easy to just wing it because let's face it, we were in a big city. Living in a smaller, more rural city has forced us to make more plans on the weekends...hence why we've been away so often and it's been hard to find time to do much of anything. I'm really enjoying it however.
So, on to Hiroshima...the last time we visited Hiroshima, we were mainly there to experience the Sake festival but ended up being able to learn a bit about Hiroshima's very dark recent history. This time, armed with a three day weekend, we thought it would be cool to head to Hiroshima as a way to visit nearby Miyajima Island (supposedly one of the three most beautiful places in all of Japan). We got to explore quite a bit of Hiroshima, outside of it's nuclear history.
So once again, Hiroshima is a really nice place. I find it nice in that it's one of those cities that is not too large, but yet still big enough (in comparison to where we live) to not get bored. It's also easy to navigate, has some very nice scenic spots, and is in close proximity to some nice day trip worthy places.
On our first day, we did a lot of walking and wondering, and just essentially taking in the city one step at a time. We found a second hand store that was selling some really, really nice clothes for rock bottom prices and we got to take advantage of that. That was definitely a nice surprise. We ate Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki for the second time in a famous district of Hiroshima that specializes in making these very delicious pancakes. Hiroshima Okonomiyaki is different from it's more famous Osakan cousin in that the ingredients are cooked separately and expertly stacked upon one another, as opposed to being mixed together and cooked. I think overall, I like the Osaka style better but that may be because of first impressions. I was unbelievably drunk the first time I ate it, but I have to say that the second time around, it was much better. It's a very distinct Japanese dish.
Throughout our walk (we were searching for a place to have a brew), we saw all sorts of interesting places and people. We ran into the usual assortment of booking clubs. Those places never cease to amaze me. I just don't understand how Japan can support these places. You pay to be entertained by some very unattractive men or women dressed in the least tasteful outfits known to man (whom also happen to have by far the worst haircuts ever. Well, nothing is worse than the mullet). Either way, we checked out some arcades as well. Another interesting thing about arcades in Japan are the UFO catches. Usually, while playing UFO games, prizes include mostly an assortment of stuffed animals and maybe some toys. But because it's Japan, we can find bags of chocolate, ice cream, bikini clad anime characters, and animal suits. It's really strange but always entertaining. Just walking around in Japan (with a beer in hand) is always a lot of fun. After failing in our search for a suitable place to drink, we settled on an intense 2 man Karaoke session. Karaoke is so much fun when the two people involved love the exact same songs.
Our second day was a little bit more chill. Because of the rainy weather, we decided on a museum day. Along the way we stopped for some really delicious Mexi Cali food, which was a nice find considering Mexican food doesn't seem to be all that popular out here (it should be). Just getting to the museum was a bit of an adventure, we had to trek through a really long tunnel and then up to a really modern escalator-filled walkway. It was an interesting entrance, and fitting, considering that we were going to a modern art museum. The museum itself was quite nice: modern and really large windows. I don't know how to describe it. It was just really modern architecture. The art itself wasn't the best I've seen, but there were definitely some note worthy places. Many of them were related to the Atomic bomb. After the museum, we decided that it would be a good idea to check out Hiroshima's only indie theater. Movie theaters in Japan are really expensive ($20) and offer a subpar selection of films, in my opinion. We were surprised to find that the movie theater was only 10 bucks a pop and offered some quality flicks for us to enjoy. The day's English offering was The Ghost Writer, a film by Roman Polanski. It was a pretty good flick, but it was just really nice to enjoy a quality flick on a nice and comfy French styled movie theater.
On our final day, we visited nearby Miyajima Island (about 40 minutes away from Hiroshima by tram and ferry). Miyajima Island is famous for having the huge Japanese style Tori gate (the red ones that define Japan) in the middle of the sea. It's called the floating gate. It's one of the most famous tourist destinations in all of Japan. So we got up early to see the gate and the place was still filled with tourists. It was a bit annoying but it didn't detract too much from the beauty of the island. One of the highlights was being able to witness a Japanese wedding. There was a wedding going on at the island's very famous temple, complete with the bride and groom dressed in elaborate Kimonos. The couple were watching an Ancient Noh performance (Japan's oldest form of theater) being performed on Japan's oldest Noh stage. It was really surreal watching the wedding and the performance. We felt really lucky (but felt bad for the bride and groom who were being photographed by hundreds of curious tourists as if they were Brad and Angelina in the flesh). We also got to eat some really delicious oysters, which Hiroshima is famous for apparently, and took many pictures with the local deer that happen to roam the island. Natalie was even attacked (very slowly) by one.
Overall, it was another great vacation worth mentioning. Probably the only negative of the whole trip was that our hostel smelled like feet...really smelly feet. And nobody likes smelly feet...
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