Adventures on Wide Island

So, like I previously mentioned, we got to Hiroshima early in the morning. Since we only had one day here, we decided to get started a little bit early. However, that really didn't happen since we left the hostel around 10:00 am. Having woken up around 4:00 am (Yale around 4:50 am), we were both hungry and ready for an early lunch. We walked downtown through the Shoutengai (shopping district) for a Mos Burger—we didn't find it, so we ended up having lunch at McDonald's. Yale wanted to have (another) Western meal since we were going to eat authentic Japanese food (tonight). Just north of the Shoutengai is the Hiroshima castle. Even though the castle was rebuilt (it got obliterated in the A-bomb) after WWII, it was still great to be there and learn of the rich history of the area. On the site, there are three "survivor" trees—who knows how, but they survived the bomb. Two of the trees look like they're on their way out, but the third tree seems to be kicking strong. From the castle, we headed back to the Peace Memorial Park; one of my favorite moments was seeing an aerial photo of Hiroshima before and after the bomb was dropped. While it is tremendously sad that the bomb was dropped on a bunch of civilians (nearly 200,000 people died from the bomb and its aftermath), it was incredible to witness its destructive force. Literally, everything was destroyed. Only a few shells of some buildings were left.

Fast-forwarding to this afternoon (I already wrote about the park and memorial), I persuaded Yale to go check out the Itsukushima Shrine on the southern end of Hiroshima. While this picture does not represent what I saw today (we didn't have such a cool sunset today—it was a tad hazy), it was still a cool shrine to check out.

Upon returning to our hostel, we headed out for Yale's first Japanese meal—okonomiyaki. I'll let Yale tell you his opinions about it. I thought it was simply delicious! Hiroshima is known for its unique twist on this Japanese dish. (The chef added an egg to it among other things.) Hopefully, I'll be able to persuade him to eat some more Japanese food in the next few days.