Hiroshima and Okonomiyaki !

Thunderbird

So today I woke up at 7a.m. to a beautiful sight at the breakfast table. Yoshimi (my host) had woken up early to cook breakfast. She had made a omelet and prepared some asparagus and cheese wrapped in ham. Yummy! After finishing the hearty meal and drinking my coffee we were ready to leave.
It feels a bit sad to leave again but I'll try to come back once more at least.

Yoshimi drove me to the JR Takaoka station where I bought my tickets and boarded the Thunderbird express train towards Shin-Osaka. There I then changed to the shinkansen  Sakura to go to Hiroshima!

I bought myself some bento at the station convenience store and headed for the tracks to wait for my train.
I didn't have to wait too long but the air outside was ridiculously warm! I mean hot, hot, hot.

So I had a pleasant train ride again all the way to Hiroshima. The trip had taken me only 5 hours from Takaoka to Hiroshima.

I arrived at 13.30 in Hiroshima so I was going to go and sightsee later after I had checked in to my hostel.

A-Bomb dome

I had to wait for 40 minutes at the J-hoppers before they started the check-inning but it was fine since they had free coffee for guests and a air conditioned complex so who am I to say no for a little break with free coffee, right?

So After check-In at 15.00 I left my luggage in my room and put my video to upload, since it had failed again last night to upload, and headed out.

Children's peace memorial

I walked from my hostel to the Atom-bomb dome and the peace memorial park to go to see the dome, the museum and of course the beautiful park with its many memorial statues and marks etc.

I had visited already last year but this time around it was just as astonishing and the museum in itself always makes you silent.

It is a solemn reminder of the horrors that nuclear weapons are capable of. The personal stories of the victims who somehow survived were heartbreaking. The things they had seen and suffered and the times that followed the bombing had been so devastating that I could not even imagine what it must have been like.

Translated from a diary 

After spending a good while at the museum I was allready feeling hungry so I left towards the Okonomimura (http://www.okonomimura.jp/foreign/english.html) to get me some delicious Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki, my favorite. I walked along the promenade of peace and turned to the street on which the Okonomimura was  located on.And before I knew it, I was there.

It was not just yet 6 p.m so I went to quickly see what the commotion was nearby at the Parco shopping complex since there was some music coming from there. They were having some kind of promotional gig or just a little free gig outside of Parco where they played some reggae music (sang in Japanese).

I soon left since I was feeling so hungry and headed towards the 3rd floor of this 5 storied building (just on a whim) and ate at one of the multiple restaurants there (again just on a whim).

I even filmed it a bit so If you want to compare the Osaka Okonomiyaki and Hiroshima Okonomiyaki, go check my videos on Youtube. I'll probably eat okonomiyaki tomorrow as well but who knows maybe I won't.

Delicious Okonomiyaki

I then returned full and satisfied to my hostel after eating the delicious Okonomiyaki and the weirdest thing happened to me.
I had earlier talked with a danish guy on Couch Surfing dot org (https://www.couchsurfing.org/) about how I was organizing a little event in Kyoto and he had shown some interest in attending it etc.
Well it just so happened that I had seen him by a glance in Tokyo and now in HIROSHIMA! and furthermore, HE IS STAYING AT THE SAME HOSTEL!
It is so weird how people can meet in such a big country like this just like that. We had made no arrangements to meet here, only in Kyoto were we supposed to meet but now we met here.
So we will be heading towards Miajima tomorrow together to see the torii, the famous red "floating" gate and Mt. Misen + other cool stuff.

So really excited for tomorrow!
Thanks for reading.
Robert