First, let me throwback to November (NOVEMBER!), when Shane was still visiting me, and we travelled down to Hiroshima for the weekend. I'm lucky because it's a really lovely city, I always enjoy visiting, and it's only a short trip from where I'm situated. Less than an hour by shinkansen.
We decided to go last-minute, and almost all the accommodation was booked out by the time we had a look. So we booked an Airbnb that popped up, which boasted views of Miyajima (one of my favourite places in the entire country), and when Friday rocked around we jumped on the shinkansen after I finished at school, and off we went.
It was freezing cold, I remember. Unusually cold for Hiroshima in November. Even with multiple layers and a snow coat, it was the kind of chill that crept in through all your clothes and wrapped around your bones. And then it just sat there, all day, every day, making your teeth and chest muscles ache. Not nice, especially since I was probably at peak tonsillitis and seriously struggling with being very sick. But I battled on through it, and we had a lovely weekend in spite of how generally dreadful I was feeling.
The Airbnb advert hadn't been lying - we had really beautiful views over the bay, and of the island. You could even spot the famous floating torii (gate) of Itsukushima Shrine, if you squinted a little. We stayed at this place (I don't know if the link will work; sorry in advance) and enjoyed it. I'd happily go back there again.
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| *X-files theme plays in background* |
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| ☺ |
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| Giant onion rings, if you were wondering. |
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| It bothered me that they cut the bread out of the inside of the bun, so the patty would fit better. |
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| The deepest deep-pan pizza? |
Afterward, we headed back into the arcade (= warmth) and found a Taito Station, which is one of Japan's video game arcade giants. We basically stayed put for a while, playing games and winning cute things from claw machines (which they call UFO catchers) until we realised with a start that it was close to midnight and the trains were going to stop running soon. So we reluctantly dragged ourselves away and went back to the hotel.
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| Jubeat is one of our favourite rhythm games. |
Miyajima is a small island known for its beautiful forests, ancient temples and shrines, and is largely inhabited by deer that wander through the town, poking their noses hopefully in shopfronts. Don't feed them - the locals will shake their fists angrily in your direction. Not really; Japanese people are too polite to make a scene. But I bet they shake their fists in their minds. The deer, whilst extremely cute, are known to be a pest to locals.
Hiroshima is generally known for its fresh, delicious seafood - especially oysters - amongst other things (lookin' at you, okonomiyaki), and there's a shopping street tucked back from the main shoreline route where you can amble your way along, sampling all kinds of delicious things. It's a foodie paradise. The entire street is just cafes, restaurants and street food vendors, as well as souvenir shops. Everything from the street food vendors is cooked up practically in front of you, and served piping hot. It's so good. We tried some roasted chestnuts, nikuman (hot, soft bread buns with pork or vegetarian filling) and a barbecued octopus cake on a stick.
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| Miyajima claims this is the world's largest rice scoop (it's about 7 metres long), which was made in celebration of Miyajima Island becoming a World Heritage Listed site. |
 
Toyokuni Shrine.
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| The spotty flavour is called "Deer Poop", and next time I'm in Hiroshima I'm going to try it. |
 
Daiganji Temple.
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| Octopus cake. Maple leaf shaped, of course. |
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| Pork and vegetarian buns. |
Anyway, both the food street and the main shoreline route wind their way to Itsukushima Shrine, the crown jewel of the island and one of Japan's official three best views. You'd think it's an exaggeration, because every town and prefecture in Japan believes it is the most beautiful and wonderful in all the land, but Itsukushima Shrine is legitimately one of the best spots, hands down. The brilliant red shrine is centuries old, and was built to appear as though floating atop the water. It's most famous for its torii (gate), which you can walk out to at low tide and be utterly dwarfed by. The enormity of the gate was somehow a surprise to me, perhaps because it looks so tiny during high tide. Anyway, the point is, it's one of those really "wow" experiences, so please visit if you ever travel to this wonderful country. Put it at the top of your list, under Tokyo and Kyoto, and above pretty much everything else.
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| This pic was taken in 2014, if you had noticed the outfit change. |
It was autumn when we visited the island, and many of my colleagues had recommended we walk up to Momijidani Park to view the changing colours of the maple leaves. So we did. And we stayed there for many hours, taking many, many photos (sorry and thanks, Shane) and being stunned by the beauty all over again every time we turned around, even if we were looking at trees we'd just looked at five minutes earlier. I honestly think Japan's autumn foliage is up there among some of the most beautiful natural scenery you can see in the entire world. I wish it could be Japanese autumn all year long, and that I could live there forever.
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| The overexposure in phone cameras kills my soul a little bit. There's only so much editing can help these poor, compromised pictures. |
We jumped in a cable car and enjoyed (or didn't; depends on who you ask. I say 'enjoyed', Shane would say 'feared') the ride up to the top of Mt. Misen, Miyajima's highest peak. You can hike up, too, if you'd prefer, and I almost wish we had, instead of being crammed like sardines into a tiny cable car with forty other people who all wanted to take photos of the view. Not fun. Do not recommend it. Up the top, though, are some nice spots to look out over the views of the oceans and islands around Hiroshima, and a cute cafe where you can experience hand-making some of Miyajima's incredibly famous omiyage (souvenir food), Momiji Manju. They're basically little sponge cakes shaped like maple leaves, and filled with an assortment of delicious things, like chocolate, matcha, or custard. They're my favourite omiyage in all of Japan (and I've sampled a lot now!), so we had a go at making some. And, naturally, we did the 'couples course', so ours all had special little love hearts on them. Cute.
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| The Hall of the Eternal Flame, atop Mt. Misen. |
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| Misen Hondo. |
Momiji Manju. ☺
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| Sponge cake baker extraordinaire. |
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| I made dis. |
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| Proud mum. |
We'd only bought one way cable car tickets, so we could hike back down, which we did after a brief relax at the cafe. I have only one gripe with the hike, and that's that the steps were freaking enormous. Whether they were man-made or naturally formed, like boulders or whatnot, my little legs had a tough time managing the height. It's a wonder any Japanese women can do the hike at all (I'm taller than the average Japanese lady). It's a really beautiful hike, very enjoyable and challenging enough without being so challenging that it stops being fun, but those darn steps were just big enough to be really jarring. Sometimes I literally had to jump down, which was unsettling because it was muddy and slippery. Anyway, whinge over. Do the hike; it's lovely. Just buy a longer pair of legs first.
My memory gets a little shoddy after this. I'd forgotten to pack my camera charger, and sometime around this point my camera died and we relied on Shane's phone instead. So I can't really remember what we did on Saturday night - to be honest it was probably the same as Friday night, involving video games at Taito Station. We definitely ate ramen at Ichiran, though, because I distinctly remember going. I always remember visiting Ichiran; it's so delicious. I also went to the Ichiran Ramen in Kobe, which you can read about here if you're interested.
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| Will worry about the logistics of getting the giant Kirby plush home later. What's important right now is that Shane did the impossible by winning this monster from a UFO catcher with extremely low odds. |
Sunday was spent exploring Hiroshima City itself. We'd already visited the Peace Memorial Park and A-bomb dome years ago, so they won't be appearing in this particular post. But we did go and check out Hiroshima Castle for the first time, which I really enjoyed. It's excellent if you've never been to one of Japan's feudal castles - this one has a great layout that is easy to follow, and plenty of English explanations, which a lot of others lack. It's also less packed and commercialised than Osaka Castle (I recommend going to look at Osaka-jo from the outside, because the exterior is truly stunning, then take a few snaps and leave - don't go in. Not worth.) so you can really enjoy it at your own pace. Basically, Hiroshima Castle is a Good Egg.
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| Hey, Hiroshima. How you doing? |
We popped down to Shukkei-en, a nice historical Japanese garden not too far from the castle, and went for a stroll around the lake, stopping to feed the koi fish any time Shane felt inclined (which was about every five minutes). Unfortunately the chill was intense on the Sunday, and any exposed skin literally burned in the cold. It was incredibly painful. So we couldn't stay outside too long; after an hour or so we had to call it quits and head for warmth.
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| Not a strange giant scarecrow monster, like I first thought. The straw protects the more delicate trees from the harsh cold winter climate. |
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| *incessant bubbling noises* |
After a visit to the Hiroshima City Pokemon Center for some shopping and some lunch, we headed back to Hiroshima Station on the bus and jumped on the next shinkansen back to Okayama. I really love Hiroshima and am already excited to visit again when my parents come over in March.
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| Red gyarados is the Hiroshima Pokemon Center's mascot. There's a unique mascot for each big city that has a Pokemon store. |
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| Never too much pizza. Never enough pizza. |
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| Ciao for now, Hiroshima. |
Also, I should probably tell you that I've officially recontracted for a second year here, so my life in Japan has been extended until at least mid-2019. There's not much of a story behind that; they flung the paperwork under my nose in December, and I signed away another year of my life. I definitely don't think one year is enough time to get settled in, develop your teaching rhythm, and achieve everything you want to in this country, so two it is! Anyway. More to come as soon as I can! x
