I left on Saturday morning and the bus was supposed to take about 3 hours to get there, but it ended up taking 4 due to a section of road where we were slowed down to a crawl due to Golden Week traffic. It could've been worse though, so I wasn't too unhappy. Once I arrived, I dropped my things off at my hotel and headed straight out to Miyajima because it was nice weather and the forecast was for rain for the next couple days afterward. When I got there, there were TONS of people everywhere!
So, I bypassed them all and went straight for the path to hike up Mt. Misen. (Although before I went up, I stopped for some delicious strawberry and yogurt dried ice). By the time I got partway up, I decided I must've been slightly insane to decide to hike that mountain that day because it was quite HOT! At around 27 or 28 degrees, it was probably the warmest day so far this year! It took me about an hour to get to the top, which I think is less time than it took the first time I hiked that mountain. When I got to the top, I spent some time enjoying the view and letting the breeze cool me down a little before I headed back down.
On my way back down the mountain, I came across this rather large bird, who was more than happy to to ignore me so I could take his picture.
When I got back down, I had planned on getting some supper, but most of the restaurants were closed, so I just got some melon-pan ice (fresh, warm and crispy melon bread with ice-cream in the middle). Delicious!!
After that, I saw I really nice sunset at the O-torii gate, and then headed back to the city.
That night I decided I would check out the websites for my hotels to see if I could stay in the same hotel instead of in 3 different ones. And I was in luck!! I was able to change it so that I could stay the rest of my trip at my second hotel (although I would have to change rooms once, but that's better than completely changing hotels!) And bonuses for me --- the second hotel was cheaper and closer to where I wanted to be! Score!!
The next day in Hiroshima was the beginning of the Flower Festival. And it rained. A lot. All day long. Regardless of the rain, I headed down to Peace Boulevard where the parade was going to be, and found myself a good spot to watch. (Although it turned out that they started the parade further down the road, so I ended up changing spots a couple of times. The parade started around 11 and I watched for maybe an hour and a half, but it actually went on until about 2. There were many different things -- motorcycles, baton throwers, the fire department, dancers, etc.
If this video doesn't work, click here
The rest of the festival included stalls of food (fresh fruit juices, mini castella cakes, candied fruits, meat on sticks, fries, pineapple on sticks, sweet potatoes cooked and dipped in sugar, bean fish cakes, pies in fish shapes, drinks, beer gardens, crepes, ramen, udon, okonomiyaki, ice-cream, shaved ice and so much more) and some activities like scooping little balls or baby koi lined the streets and were interspersed with various stages that held performances from singers, dancers, drummers, comedians and more. There was also a large dancing area and a main stage set up right next to the Peace Museum, and after the parade the crane lanterns were set up down the path between Peace Museum to the A-bomb epicenter building along with some flowers and candles.
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| Flower tower |
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| Singing in the rain |
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| Crane lanterns |
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| Umbrellas, umbrellas everywhere! |
Here's an example of one of the singers that I stopped to listen to: Lee Sang Un:
If this video doesn't work, click here.
After spending most of the day at the festival, I finished off the day by wandering through Hon-dori -- Hiroshima's main big shopping street.
The next day started off with some light rain still, but the weather did clear off and actually became quite warm and sunny. I started this day off by taking a quick visit to Hiroshima Castle, and took some pictures of the survivor trees again.
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| Survivor eucalyptus |
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| Survivor willow |
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| Hiroshima Castle |
Then I did I bit of wandering and exploring going down by the river and enjoying the nice views and bridges, until I eventually made my way back over to the A-bomb epicenter building.
After that, I found myself back at the flower festival, and this time when I arrived, they were doing some high jumps on the street.
And did I mention, there were even MORE people this day!
I also watched some more dancing and listened to a variety of music...pop, jazz, rock, traditional Japanese music, classical, drumming and more....
Drummers. If this video doesn't work, click here
Samurai dancers/rockers? Kind of difficult to describe, and I think my video won't really help.
If this video doesn't work, click here.
Or for an easier to watch version of what they do, I found them at this video!
That same evening I waited at one of the bridges to watch them put the crane lanterns out into the water and light them up. It took a rather long time for them to go about doing it, but it looked really nice when they finally did.
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| Waiting.... |
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| Testing the lights... |
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| Finally taking them out... |
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| For an amazing effect |
If this video doesn't work, click here.
The next day was my final full day in Hiroshima and since the weather was once again beautiful, I went back out to Miyajima to enjoy the day at the beach. Of course, it was crowded with tourist around the main sites, so I walked in the opposite direction and found a number of small and quiet little beaches to enjoy. They weren't lonely at all though, I had some rather friendly and curious deer stop by for a visit and of course to check out if I had anything they could eat. I didn't. That was most of my day there, but I also took a stroll through the shopping street (ate some yummy peach flavored momoji) and picked up some omiyage for our staff.
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| The hordes of tourists |
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| Quiet little beach |
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| Cute little baby deer |
My final morning, I visited Shukkeien, (the garden), and afterwards spent some time along the river enjoying the sun before I had to get on the bus.
And that, was most of what happened. On this trip to Hiroshima though, I did feel like it was much smaller than the first time I was there. There were also a lot of foreigners there and so a lot of the Japanese people tried speaking in English to me, which was a little bit frustrating because I always want to practice my Japanese when I'm on holiday. I did get to practice a little bit though when asking where someplace was, and at that time I got the reaction that is really amusing--- the "Oh no, this foreigner is going to talk to me" look, followed by pure and utter relief when I talk to them in Japanese instead of English. ^_-
If you want to look at more pictures from this trip, click here.
