Sunday, March 29, 2009

Hiroshima 広島

My apologies! I never published, but had it saved as a draft. (July 17th)

Thursday morning I woke up. Showered, got dressed, ate. Took luggage and self to the car.
Car did not start. Steering wheel was locked up. Could not get it to unlock. 5:30AM. Train would leave at 6:44AM from Kaibara. Station is 30 minutes away by car. Key is still not turning in locked and steering wheel is still locked.

I paid 10,000 yen for bus tickets from Osaka to Hiroshima. I was getting on a train to Osaka, dammit!

So I walked down to the convenience store to see if they had the telephone number for the taxi company in town. Taxis wouldn't start running until 8AM, however. So instead of taking a taxi the convenience store staff arranged to have me arrive at the station at 7:30AM via bread delivery truck. The delivery guy was good company on the way to the station. He even skipped his last stop before the station to make sure I got on the train on time. Mr. Morikawa, I take off my cap to you!

I eventually got to Osaka (after some delays) and Heidi and I took a later bus to Hiroshima.

We stayed at a lovely hostel called the Hana Hostel and hung out with a bunch of great people, mostly Westerners, in the evenings.

Our first full day we went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Dome, which is a skeleton of a building that survived the blast. We also went to the Peace Memorial Museum and the memorial for Sadako Sasaki.

Our second day we went to Miyajima Island, famous for its "floating" architecture, monkeys, momiji manju, and deer imported from Nara. They have some of the best preserved forests in Japan on the island.

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