Day 6 Japan
I woke up reasonably early this morning and went to check out the Torii gate and temple before the tourists arrived.
It was low tide again so it was basically the same as last night.
The temple was pretty nice. Very open layout to take advantage of the location in the bay and quite understated. No big gaudy Buddha statues or anything. It was just a nice pleasant temple.
They were doing a roaring trade with blessing trinkets. They must get all their funding from people who buy a piece of material that's supposed to help them with hair loss or something.
I did a little walk through the other end of town past the temple then took off up to the rope way (I.e. Cable car) to go up the mountain on the island. There was a temple I wanted to visit so I thought I'd combine the rope way to the top with a walk down the other side back to the temple.
The walk up to the rope way was nice. I found a little side path along a river and followed that for as long as I could. I actually got some use out of my filter water bottle! I filled up in the creek and the water was cold and tasty with no stomach rumblings later.
The process of getting on the cable car was very tedious. Walk up the hill a bit to the thing. Buy a ticket. Stand in a queue with everyone sweating their balls off. Then you get herded into a couple of different cable cars to go up the mountain. Whatever - got there and I was the tallest so I could see everything on the way.
Unfortunately it was an overcast morning when I got to the lookout so there really wasn't much to see. So I followed the signs to the temple I wanted to see and started on a 30 minute uphill walk (bastard!) before I could start going down. I wasn't the slowest which was great!
Finally started down and it turned out to be about a 90 minute walk down the hill - concrete steps all the way. Glad I decided not to try walking up from the bottom. Sort of twisted my ankle on the way down but managed to walk it off. There were some signs along the way saying there was a dangerous Japanese snake in this area and to be careful. Pfft. I'm from Australia.
Finally got down to the bottom and it was a beautiful temple. There was a big damn and then a big waterway and wall along the side of the temple so I could use my water filter again.
It was a nice temple. Plenty of stairs (obviously) and a bunch of nice buildings. Lots of statues everywhere (Buddha and other). Turns out the temple was about 10 minutes walk from the other temple I visited that morning and I didn't really need to walk 90 minutes to get there but I had fun.
It was about high tide when I was finished so I went and had a look at the water temple and Torii gate for the last time.
Grabbed my bag from the hostel then took off back to Hiroshima.
There was a Japanese drum group at the train station while waiting for the Hiroshima train. They looked like they were high school girls and they were pretty awesome! In costume, really loud and a frenetic pace. Some of the drummers seemed really into it and others not so much. There was also a tv crew and a fancy train on the other platform who all packed up and left once the drummers had finished. Clearly a segment for some kind of tourist show. Must have been a very fancy train because all these Japanese people kept looking in the window and taking selfies in front of it.
Back to Hiroshima and I checked into my hostel. It was a pretty good hostel. Nice and clean with yet another Japanese person who had lived in Australia for a while. This time the Gold Coast I think.
After all my walking that day and having done the memorial stuff already all I really felt like doing was having a couple of beers. So I went to a little craft beer place not far from the hostel. Place was called Raku and it was owned by an American guy. They only served Japanese craft beer. I don't remember what I had but they were OK. They were mostly beer styles I didn't recognise or beers with Japanese ingredients in them. A regular at the bar brought in some snacks he got from Korea so he shared those around which was nice. Some sort of odd flavoured kitkat and something else. I also had a really nice bar snack but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Something odd or I wouldn't have ordered it.
The beer was OK but I didn't really like the venue. Not that friendly.
After that I headed for food at this place called Okonomi-moru. It's basically a multi-story food court where every place sells Okonomiyaki. The idea is that each one will prepare it slightly differently and you just go in and sit down at the place you like the look of. I randomly chose the third floor and ended up at a place where an old dude nearly pounced on me when I walked in.
I sat down and ordered as best I could from the terrible English menu then ordered a large beer which turned out to be 1L of Kirin in a glass stein. Heavy mofo. So the dude started cooking my pancake and then a younger guy took over so the owner could talk to his other customers. The guy had (shocker) spent some time in Australia so he could speak a bit of broken English. We had a stilted conversation and a couple of laughs so it was fun.
Eventually I got my pancake and started to eat it while watching some terrible reality tv show they had on at the bar. Some kind of relationship thing where the really dopey looking guy used to be a Japanese pop star who became a farmer and his wife who I assume was a groupie and missed the party life. Scintillating stuff. I think he tried to make a comeback as a hip hop star because they showed him wearing a stupid outfit in a recording studio at the end.
Now Hiroshima Okonomiyaki is different to other Okonomiyaki apparently. They use noodles in it here while they don't do that elsewhere. I dunno. This was the first real one I'd had in Japan and it was really tasty. I reckon it's super bad for you but delicious comfort food. I finished my pancake and beer, bid farewell to my new friend and took off back towards the hostel.
On the way home I stopped in at a cheapo store and picked up a messenger bag. I hate to admit it here but Maile was right. While shopping in Brisbane a couple of days before I left I picked up this little backpack that folds down smaller than an apple.
She's all "wouldn't you prefer a messenger bag like the one you carry around all the time?".
And I'm like "no - a backpack will be more convenient!".
Well she was right. I hate that backpack. I wanted my ikea bag back. So I got this bag and I already like it better.
Because I was a little tipsy I picked up some donuts from a store on the way back to the hostel. They were terrible.
Met a newcomer in my room at the hostel ... An Irishman called Jake (I think). He ran into some folks who were drinking on the roof so we got some drinks and headed up there. A Canadian couple were there and we joined them. Then we were joined by another Australian and an Englishman. Eventually we got kicked off the roof and kept drinking in the common room til the wee hours. It was fun though I think there were a couple of small hangovers the next day.
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