Hiroshima Trip (4/24-26)

Saturday was very very rainy, but we were determined to get to Miyajima because Yukari had never been, so we walked around for about 3 hours in the rain and puddles. By the time we left our shoes were soaked through and my canvas umbrella was actually dripping straight through onto my head.

Rainy Itsukushima Shrine

Yukari shaking a little numbered stick out of the fortune box.

Getting the fortune out of the corresponding drawer.

She got basically the worst possible fortune full of bad luck and illness and not being able to find lost items, so this is her attempt to look sad about that...

Tying the fortune to the fortune poles. And looking much too happy, if you ask me, considering the fortune she just got!

Dog in backpack, Miyajima



After Miyajima we checked into our hostel, dried our socks somewhat with the hair dryer (even though this was pretty pointless without dry shoes) and wandered out into the very rainy night.

We found...

very yummy Hiroshima style okonomiyaki

and

a sports bar which was filled with all kinds of random sports memorabilia, had about a hundred or more kinds of imported beer, and was playing synchronized swimming on its TV.

This seems very wrong somehow...



Sunday's weather was much nicer, sunny and warm! So we spent about an hour blow-drying our shoes then headed to Peace Park and the shopping arcades.

This has to be my favourite Indian restaurant in Japan. I've been there about 4 times now. It's in a big shopping mall near Hiroshima Castle. It is sooo good and they don't skimp on the paneer like some other places I've been! I went there for lunch with Yukari, then ended up going again for dinner with Angie! ;)

Yukari and giant nan

Yukari's first visit to Hiroshima-jo.

We are samurai in Hiroshima Castle.

On Monday Yukari had left to go back to work, and I went to Miyajima again (because it was now sunny!) with Angie and her friend Sara who was visiting from the States.


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Fun with English:

Looks like a good school...


The sign in the bathroom at our hostel:

Curiouser and curiouser...

When I was on my way back to the train station this giant pack of Aussie students on a school trip got on the tram. I'd forgotten how LOUD 15-year-olds are outside of Japan. This was "internationalization" if I ever saw it! The Aussies found a group of Japanese boys who were the same age and proceeded to read from their Japanese phrasebook things like "Can you tell me the way to the nearest gay bar?" Then the girls all started taking pictures with the Japanese boys. This is a much more effective way to get teenaged boys interested in English.