Day Trip to Hiroshima

So how do you like this, two blog posts in two days! Today Kirk and I met up with her co-worker Jeff who lives in Hiroshima and graciously offered to show us around the city and take us to some of his favorite spots. Luckily we had a crash course on how to use the train system here during our cultural indoctrination, so today we had no problems finding the Iwakuni station and getting on the right train. The ride to Hiroshima took us along the coast and made multiple stops in the towns along the way, taking about 50 minutes total.

We met Jeff outside of the station and first we went to the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum was featuring the Yoko Ono 2011 exhibit, as she was given the Hiroshima Art Prize for using her art to inspire peace.

Next we walked over to Peace Park, which is a war memorial for the atomic bomb that was dropped in 1945. The building in the picture below is the only structure remaining in the original state after the bomb was dropped. The second picture is the memorial arch, which was built with line-of-sight to the building above.

Next we set off on our trek towards Jeff's favorite restaurant and on the way walked through Hondori St., which is a covered street with lots of shops and restaurants. There was a clothing store named "Womb", which Kirk had a negative reaction to and will thus not be shopping there :).

The restaurant we went to specializes in serving Okonomiyaki, which is a little hard to describe as I have never in my life had anything close to this before, but here it goes. It is basically a crepe with cabbage on top that is fried and topped with egg, prawns, squid, scallops, bacon and scallions and a Japanese BBQ sauce.

On our way back through the mall from the restaurant we came across a live rock band playing, made up of five young Japanese girls. I have to admit their music was pretty catchy despite not understanding any of the words.

So that concludes our first day trip to Hiroshima city. We were so lucky to have a great tour guide to show us around and help us learn the lay of the land. We will definitely be making more trips north like this in the future!

Oh, but wait! Kirk wants you to see this:

She successfully navigated the "squatting toilet" at the Art Museum. Good Job Honey.