Osaka Adventure: Day 3- Hiroshima and Miyajima

Greetings from Hiroshima! Actually, we are about to leave Hiroshima as I write this post, but the whole post will be about our trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima.

We started out the day by waking up super early (again).  Well, we did have 10 hours of sleep after all! LOL!  We got up before the sun and decided to try find 7-11.  Success!  We got more musubis and snacks for the trip.  When we got back to the room, we decided to eat that cheescake that we bought the night before.  We really should've eaten it fresh, but we were too full and tired to enjoy it.  It was still ono the next day!

After packing for our overnighter, we headed towards Osaka Station to get on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima.  The main thing we planned to do in Hiroshima was to check out the Peace Memorial Park.  It was pretty far from the station but we still walked the whole way!  On the way, we found a Tokyu Hands, so I grabbed some stuff that people were asking us for.

Finally we made it to the park!  The leaves were turning color already!

This is the children's peace memorial dedicated to Sakado Sasaki who folded cranes while she was sick from the bombing.

See the crane?  You can ring the bell by pulling on his cord.

You can read more about it here..

So, people who come to visit from all over the world fold cranes and bring them here to hang.  Now I wish we did that too!

This was my favorite one.  Its so cute!

Although it has a special message, seeing all the cranes made me a little sad.

So we ventured into the park to look at the fall foilage..

This building is the original dome that was right near where the bomb fell.  It still stands today,  Amazing!

The whole park was filled with trees turning color!

Behind us is the peace memorial in the park that was made to look like a shelter

Next, we headed towards the museum... It had a lot of interesting information...  This is what Hiroshima looked like before the bombing...

And this is what it looked like after...

Paul said these were the actual cranes folded by Sadako.

Towards the end of the exhibits, they showed a lot of graphic photos that I wasn't prepared to see.  I had to stop early because I started getting emotional and didn't want to cry at the museum.  When Paul was finished, we decided to leave for Miyajima.

So since we walked all the way to the park, we decided to try to look for food or catch the bus back to the station.  Since there was hardly any food places nearby we decided to catch the bus.... so lesson number one- we don't know how to catch the bus, so don't follow our instructions. LOL!  I think you are supposed to enter from the middle of the bus and grab a ticket. Then when you leave, you give the ticket to the driver with your exact fare.  Well, we were dumb and didn't get a ticket.. then we tried to pay with our train card.  He was nice and didn't get mad at us.  I'm sure he was shaking his head at us after we got off.

So since we were still hungry, we decided to look for food at Hiroshima Station.  We looked at the department store food but surprisingly didn't find anything that looked good.  So we decided to find a restaurant upstairs and decided on an Okonomiyaki restaurant.  You could order other items too, so we decided to get a grilled musubi and karaage chicken along with an okonomiyaki to share.  Here's my rice and chicken.  It was ono!

And here's my first Okonomiyaki!  It had noodles on the bottom then it seemed more like an egg than a pancake, cabbage, squid, and shrimp, topped with green onions.  I didn't think I'd really like it, but I was pleasantly surprised!  See my little spatula?  I feel like the girl from Ranma 1/2.

So we decided we really needed to try these cheese tarts.  There was a constant line around the building for them, so they must be good right?  We got one lemon and one regular.  I liked the lemon one the best!  It was really liquidy once you broke into it and the crust was a cookie- not like a pie.

After our dessert, we were ready to make our way to Miyajima.  Let me just say that the Hiroshima JR tracks are very confusing!  We ended up on the wrong platform 2xs and then again when we came back.  Then we saw other people getting lost too, so at least it wasn't only us.

We finally made it on the train!

The train ride is about 20 minutes from Hiroshima Station.  After you get out of the station, you need to go underground just to cross the street!  Then just go straight ahead and you will find the ferry to Miyajima Island.  The ferry comes regularly, so the wait wasn't that long.

Can you tell how cold I am?

Paul got this nice shot from the boat. We just made it for sunset!

And now for the best part!!!!  I got to see deer!!

You are not supposed to feed them... but they come up to you looking for food.  They aren't that pushy like the Nara deer.  Well, most of them are not.

Look!  I made friends!!

These two were on the beach.  Mommy and baby.

I think this was the Daddy.  He didn't go that far ahead of them- kept turning around to check on them. 

When we went to check out the famous torii gate, this guy came up to Paul and really wanted his bag.  I think he could smell the cheese tart that was in it.

He wanted it so much, he tore the bag!  They really like paper by the way... more on that later.

Here's that torii gate I was telling you about.  Its beautiful in the ocean.

After visiting the gate, we decided to try find our hotel and look for food.  While on our way, some of the shops were still open, so Paul got to try the fresh oysters.  He said it was really good.

Look how huge they are!

OK, can someone please explain what is up with this rice paddle?  And every store was selling them too.

We finally found our hotel located up the road from the street with all the shops.  It was called Live Max or something like that.  The hotel was nice! No shoes inside- you gotta leave them in lockers by the door.  Oh and if you want to eat dinner in their restaurant, you need to let them know by 3:00 that day.... yeah, we didn't know or do that, so we were dinnerless.  Luckily we had paid for free breakfast the next day, so at least we'll be able to eat that.

So we had to venture out to look for food.  Hmmmm... didn't realize what a challenge that would be!  It was only 6:00, but everything was pretty much closed on the island except one izakaya that was already packed. Geez, even Hilo food places stay open past 6:00!

No combini either... Hmmm...

 So we decided to take the ferry back to the main island and see if we could find something open there.  We found 7-11, so if worse came to worse, we could eat combini food.

A few doors down, we found an izakaya that served dinner, so we settled on there for dinner.  Phew!
Started off with two LARGE beers.

Paul had to help me finish mine.  Yes, I'm a lightweight.

Ok here's what we had at a glance...  Paul had chicken karaage set and I had the tonkatsu set.  It was good!

And for dessert, we went to 7-11 to grab some snacks.  Paul wanted this ice cream sandwhich. The outside is like a wafer cone that is super crunchy and fresh!

After we got back to the island, we headed back to our hotel.  See that deer?  He was being totally kalohe.  He was eating those signs on the board!  I was wondering why the deer was in the back roads away from the others!

We sure did a lot yesterday!  Wait till you see what we did today!!  More Miyajima Island and Hiroshima on tomorrow's post.  See you then!