Hiroshima is a nice, compact city. It’s pretty easy to cycle all around, with the exception of the main shopping area around Hachobori and Hon-dori (because there are too many pedestrians).
We spent two nights in Hiroshima. Tourists normally make daytrips to Hiroshima but I think the 2 days spent there were worth it. It was much more relaxing that way.
In the morning we went to the Peace Memorial Park. Loads of tourists and school excursions there.
Left: *evil aura* villain’s castle. Right: Hero’s castle. Cue birdsong.
Then we cycled to Hiroshima Castle (admission fees: 360 yen). It was pretty overcast in the morning but cleared when we got out.
Only the main donjon stands. It was a bit of a novelty walking around a museum with open windows! The cool breeze helped to ventilate the castle, and was very welcome. Wonder what it would be like in the heights of summer though, doesn’t look like there is air-conditioning there.
The exhibits at the castle museum were historical and concentrated particularly on Hiroshima’s founding in 1589 and its feudal past.
We went to the huge department store in front of Hiroshima Castle. It could have been Sogo. We went to a Western-style cafe where Ray had omu rice with demiglace sauce (his favourite) and I had mentaiko pasta (my favourite). It was pretty fancy by Australian standards and the service as usual was very attentive. And even though we were on the restaurant floor of a posh department store, our meals were under 1000 yen each! I love the restaurant-gai (restaurant floor) >_<. I love how easy it is to get good cheap food in Japan. Imagine a restaurant floor in a place like David Jones...You would NEVER get a satisfying meal for under $10.
Shukkeien is the garden to go to in Hiroshima (admission fees: 250 yen). It’s next to their Art museum and you can get a discount if you go to both. It was quite pretty if not as obsessively-manicured as some other famous Japanese gardens are wont to do (like the Tokugawa-en). In layout it actually reminds me of the Sydney Chinese Garden. And no wonder, because both gardens have been modelled on Hangzhou’s West Lake.
After that we rode over to Hibiya Park on the east side of town. There’s a Manga library there. We actually got lost trying to find the stupid place XD. It didn’t matter too much though, we had a lovely ride. We actually ended up skirting the whole perimeter of the park trying to find and entrance *into* the place. Even though it was so close to the main business and commercial area, the residential area was so peaceful and quiet! It was like stepping into a different world, or like in one of those Japanese slice of life movies. We finally found the route up to the library but, as the park is basically on a hill, the incline was so steep we had to pretty much push the bikes up all the way D:
The library was fairly large and quite crowded. All in Japanese of course so we walked round and left in about 2 minutes. Was it worth it spending 2 hours trying to find the place? >_> Well the journey is just as important as the destination right? Plus riding down that hill was very fun! We spent what felt like an hour pushing the bikes up but we got down that hill in about 2 minutes. I thought I was going to stack it a couple of times, but on the bright side I’d finally use the travel insurance I bought. I suppose the bad news is that I *would* have to use the travel insurance.
Hiroshima is famous for its oysters and okonomiyaki. Hiroshima style okonomiyaki is very different from the Osaka style. The chef pours a thin batter on the hot teppan (hot plate, lit. iron board) which makes a thin pancake/crepe. Egg wheat noodles, cabbage and bacon are stacked on top. The tricky bit is when the whole not-exactly-cohesive lot is flipped. After that the brown okonomiyaki sauce is liberally brushed on and a huge handful of spring onions pressed on top. More brown sauce and sesame seeds can then be added acording to preference. That’s the basic method but other things like kimchi, mochi, cheese and as in the above photo - oysters - can be added at various stages of the cooking process. Ray prefers the Hiroshima style because it’s not as doughy as Osaka style. I think I still prefer Osaka style because I find noodles + any other starchy product weird.
Oyster okonomiyaki, teppanyaki gyu-tan (ox tongue), teppanyaki assorted mushrooms in butter sauce, teppanyaki oysters with butter.
We pretty much ate with our right hands on our chopsticks and left hands holding bottles of sauce. We must have finished off half a bottle of QP mayonnaise and okonomiyaki sauce each!
Oh and the weird thing is we always tried to get the more “deluxe” okonomiyakis but they seemed to always mishear us and gave us the basic ones with no special fillings >_>
There are two okonomiyaki places to go to in Hiroshima and we went to both. There is okonomiyaki-mura near PARCO, and Okonomi Monogatari Ekimae-Hiroba which is in front of the JR Hiroshima station. They are whole floors of just okonomiyaki stalls so there’s heaps of variety. The stressful thing is that everyone calls out to you to come in and you feel embarrassed having to pick one over the other and then you see the sad faces from the other stalls >_<
I had to choose the place to eat both times because Ray didn't want to feel guilty over choosing one over others <_<
Oh and one thing I noticed about Japan? So many tiny vehicles!! Compare the humans standing next to the trucks for reference. If I ever lived in Japan I’d buy one of those little pickup trucks. So cute~~.
The owner of the Boston Bakery saw us taking photos of his truck and asked us why were doing that. I told (in terrible Japanese, but he somehow seemed to understand, miracle!) him because it was so small and cute. He thought it was funny and said he’d take a photo of both of us with the truck XD. Pretty friendly guy!
We stayed at J-Hoppers. When we went it was 3000 yen per person per night. They offer whole day bike hire for a very reasonable price. Getting around the city by bike is very highly recommended.
Full-size photos, some with extra descriptions, are available in my “Japan 2007″ flickr set here.
See the rest of my Japan blog entries here.
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