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asia places to go

hiroshima and miyajima, japan – ’12

 almost exactly a year ago, we were visiting hiroshima and miyajima.  so i’m posting this on the anniversary of the bombing of hiroshima.

traveling is so easy in japan, even though we had to figure out the system in each city (because the JR tickets don’t work everywhere). here, we took trolley cars like in san fransisco. there were more tourists here than any other place we visited on this trip besides tokyo and we met an americanji on the trolley. it’s always nice meeting other americans when traveling because we usually always like chatting. we also met a little japanese girl at breakfast who wanted to come over and say ‘hello’

more indoor malls, the japanese love their indoor malls!

the a-bomb dome. crazy that this is just right in the middle of the city. but what’s more crazy is that the bomb basically took out the entire city of hiroshima, and 67 years later, the city has increased six times its previous size! it’s a beautiful park with really great memorials to commemorate the day and wish for peace.

i love how everything was so linear, see how you can see the dome in the background below..

for dinner, we were recommended hiroshima style okonomiyaki. that literally translates to ‘as you like it’ they are like crepes on the bottom with cabbage and noodles, then you add anything you want to it. we did eggs, cheese and green onions and they make it right in front of you. it reminded me of a tostada, and we shared it, it was delicious! they came to be during WWII when the troops introduced flour to japan.

that night we wandered into an area labeled on the map ‘night life area’. we thought it might be a good place to grab a drink or a snack…turns out it was pretty sketch and was more than likely a red light district…whoops!! so we headed back to the covered mall and hung out at a three story starbucks instead.

we had also found out about a really cool island right off the coast. we were heading to our next destination after, so unfortunately we had to carry all our bags. but it was still a cool little random side trip. we took a boat (which took our JR passes!) and there were these temple gates in the water (o-torii gate).

surprise, there are tons of deer everywhere. at first we (ok probably only me) were excited to see them, and they were tame so you could pet them, which of course i love. but we soon realized that these deer are basically pests. if you plan to grab any food, you are suddenly surrounded by them and they start pulling at your clothes or anything you have with you. one chewed a hole in my bag.

here’s the bag this deer ripped into…there wasn’t even any food in there!!

this island is known for their flavor filled ‘cookies’. they had a variety, as you can see below. we loved the sea eel one…kidding! we got chocolate 🙂

we also got mango smoothies and french fries, random!