This morning we woke up to a beautiful day outside, partly cloudy and very comfortable. We headed to the 23rd floor for the “western style” breakfast. The view was so beautiful, and the food was pretty good. Lola was happy they had signs for the allergens which was super helpful. The breakfast was good. People enjoyed the variety, and trying some different foods. It was weird that the bacon said it had milk and wheat in it….so Lola stayed away from that.
After breakfast we headed back to our rooms to freshen up and head to the dock to catch our Fast Boat to Miyajima Island. We had a hard time finding the way out of the hotel but eventually we made it out, and spent a little time out by the water outside our hotel before boarding the boat, scheduled to leave at 9:30.
We made it on the fast boat and arrived at Miyajima approximately 30 minutes later. We got off the boat and knew we only had about 1 hour before we had to board the next boat to get to Hiroshima Station. It was kind of weird as the boats didn‘t run between 11 and 2, so we wanted to make it on the 11 o’clock boat to get to Hiroshima for the afternoon.
Miyajima was an amazing little village, with shops, deer and the all famous Itsukushima Jinja Shrine, that is floating when the tide is in and on land when the tide is out. We all really enjoyed it. After taking photos we headed down the street to look at all the shops, Lola bought a rice paddle, and we headed to the dock. Oh and don’t forget about the Dear that were on the island…
It was the 6 of us and 2 others that headed on the boat to Hiroshima Station. We didn’t realize that there was a boat that would have taken us right to the peace park, but had already purchased our tickets, so we headed to the port and then took a trolly up the hill to as close to peace park as we could get.
Once near the park, we tried to find food, Lola had found a resturant and it was closed (the only Wednesday of the month), so DD found a Beer Pub called Hiroshima Neighborly Brewing, near by to head to. We were the only people eating at the restaurant so we were a little sceptical, but most of us had teriyaki chicken or some variation and Lola had sausage.
After lunch we headed to Peace Park the location of the Atomic Bomb. T has been waiting all trip to experience this, as he read it in a book and this was the place he wanted to go. AA and DD also really wanted to go.
It was much larger than Lola had thought, we started with the remains of one building that was left. This building is quite incredible, and unexpected as the entire city was decimated 79 years ago. Then we continued through the gardens looking at all the artifacts, fountains and monuments.
Next up we went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It was very sad and disturbing. The kids really took everything in, and the adults too. It was very sad learning about all the human stories and very graphic photos. Lola, MBMell and AA enjoyed the Sadoko Story section as we all remember reading the book and folding paper cranes in school. DD doesn’t think he ever read the book.
After the museum, we walked to Hiroshima Castle, about a 19 minute walk. As we walked we pasted the Hypocenter of the A bomb, T was pretty excited as he has been asking about where it was throughout hole park.
We arrived at the Castle, and went over the bridge over the moat, which is super cool in the middle of the city. This was our first experience where we had to take off our shoes. We all had a difficult time walking on the hard floor. The security Guard came over as were were exploring and wanted to take our photo, so we all posed on the mats and he took a great group shot of us. We walked around and then put our shoes back on to head to the Castle. We walked up many floors looking at the artifacts, and then made it to the top to see the views, Lola also found the first stamp. There was also a mascot of a cat with a castle on its head for the Hiroshima Castle, that the kids really enjoyed.
After visiting this castle we realized how much we had learnt at the Samurai and Ninja museum that helps us understand the time period, the people who lived in these castles.
The castle was great, and then we tried to find food. This didn’t go well. We tried to find a place as we walked back, but couldn’t find anything. Then DD found a place near where we ate lunch then he couldn’t find it once we got to our destination. Eventually we had a choice between McDonalds and going to the same place we had for lunch. T decided he didn’t want McDonald’s so we headed back to the Beer Pub. We were all very grumpy, but decided to order different things, except for Lola who had the sausage agiain. MBMell ordered “taco salad” which was very interesting as it has cheese, vinaigrette dressing on the mix greens and pasta sauce on a stale tortilla shell. AA didn‘t really read when he got with skewers of liver, heart and neck, he did not enjoy it… the rest had a teriyaki chicken burger which they all seemed to enjoy.
Once we had supper we figured out we could take the bus the whole way back to our hotel. We got some snacks at the 711 at the corner before squishing on the bus. We got on but couldn’t figure out how to get a ticket. We got off at the wrong stop, and then had to explain we didn’t have ticket, AA was flustered and put his change into the change machine, instead of the fare. Eventually the bus driver had to help him put it in the correct place, and we got off with no harm.
Back at the rooms, the kids got to bed, we we enjoyed some cribbage, and Lola tried a new soda, Yuzu & Lemon Soda.
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