Hiroshima

Yo. So today we checked out of the Shinagawa Prince Hotel and headed for the station. We took the shinkansen (bullet train) to Shin-Osaka Station and changed trains to get to Hiroshima Station. For breakfast, Okaasan brought me a kind of pull apart bread and mango jam. To our surprise, the bread was hollow and filled with what I think was cottage cheese, which I don't particularly care for. Buying food in Japan is sometimes a gamble when you can't read Japanese. The jam was absolutely delicious though. As a rule of thumb, I love just about anything mango; its my favorite fruit. I bought another hot lemonade from the vending machine at the station.

A thought: In Japan there is a smoking and non-smoking section for just about everything from restaurants to bullet trains. In actuality though, you're offered smoke, or less smoke, because even if you aren't in the smoking section, it always wafts your way eventually. Also, for seemingly no reason, the English voice for the shinkansen is British, while every other automated English voice I've heard is American.

Our hotel's lobby. It's actually nicer than the last hotel.

So we finally arrived in Hiroshima after about 5 or 6 hours of travel, I think. We checked in and offloaded our stuff in our room before heading back to the station to catch the Sanyo Main Line for Miyajimaguchi Station. This train was a bit older than the ones I've come to be familiar with in Tokyo, and as such had no English written or otherwise. Confused after having stopped 6 times without reaching our destination, we got off at Miyauchi Kushido Station to find out if we were on the right track (unintended pun). We ended up being on the right train, but had one more stop before reaching our station. We had to wait about 15 minutes for another train to arrive. On the first train, there was a middle aged man across from me, a school girl next to him, and an older man next to me. The older man spoke to the school girl for the entire trip, and she just nodded along smiling occasionally to let him know she was listening. I could tell she didn't really want to talk to him though. It wasn't until towards the end that I realized he reeked of booze. I'd like to think that the drunk old geezer was telling her about how a soda pop cost only 5 yen in his day. After finally arriving, we headed to the ferry terminus a few blocks away and waited for our ride.The ferry was only about a 10 minute trip across the water. We reached land and then immediately proceeded to the right towards the large gateway and shrine. Through here was a long strip of shops aimed at tourists. All of the shops sold basically the same items, so there wasn't much variety. Along the way was a nice little shop that sold deep fried cheeses and meats. I had chicken skewers and my God were they delicious. We visited the shrine and then said our goodbyes to the lovely Miyajima Island. At the station we met some Americans who made a day trip out of Miyajima. One of the guys was from Fresno actually, but it didn't appear as if he had been there long.

Our ferry.

Deer roam the island here.

They approach people without a care in the world.

The one standing here was trying to chew open a box in this shop.

Back at Hiroshima Station (conveniently attached to the Hiroshima Granvia Hotel), we scoured the area for something to eat. We decided upon a ramen place, closest to the hotel lobby. Outside, a trash cart being pushed around could be heard playing a polyphonic version of Yankee Doodah.

Daniel