Its now been 4 days since I have returned from my trip to Hiroshima and Fukuoka, and I’ve finally gotten enough sleep to make up for the exhaustion that was brought on by all the walking, traveling, sightseeing, and cool stuff that Cassidy and I did in Hiroshima and Fukuoka. Beware, this post is novel length:

Friday:

Friday morning we woke up at 5:30am (and shockingly the sun wasn’t even up yet!) and got ready to get on the cab that we had arranged to pick us up at JCMU at 6am. We made it down to the lobby in time, and then we waited. And waited. The cab was 10 minutes late and we knew that we had now missed the 6:16am train that we were going to take to Kyoto. Then, just to double check, I walked all the way out near the road in front of JCMU, and there was the cab parked, behind some tall shrubs and away from our view in the lobby (this isn’t where the cabs usually park, they usually go right up to near the door). So, feeling stupid we apologized to the cab driver, and got into the nice warm cab and made it to the station. We made it just as the train that we wanted to take was leaving the platform, so we had another 10 minutes to take for the next train to get there. At 6:20am at a train station in Japan I figured that it would be packed (since Japanese people seem to like to get to their jobs insanely early), but it wasn’t. Eventually our train arrived, a limited express train to Kyoto, and we were able to get on and store our suitcases without any problems. As we were heading towards Kyoto, it struck us that this train wasn’t going to stop at Kyoto, so we thought maybe we would just stay on it instead of change trains for Osaka, which is what we thought we would have to do. Luckily this express train went not only to Kyoto, but also to Osaka, and ultimately Himeji, all stops on the way to Hiroshima. At Himeji we got off the train and had to switch to the JR Sanyo line, which was a little tricky and at first we (thought) we had gotten on the wrong train since Hiroshima was so far away from our current location and so most signs/schedules didn’t even list it. So we went one stop and got off at some one-track stop in the middle of nowhere and waited for the train to go back. Unfortunately, 20 minutes later when we got back to our original station, we discovered that we had in fact been on the correct train. So, now we had another 20+ minute wait for another train to come. During the 20 minute wait I attempted to use the bathroom at the train station, and to my horror and regret I found the only thing available was not only a traditional Japanese style hole in the ground toilet, but it was a latrine as well……..well, on the bright side, it wasn’t a mixed sex bathroom like one at the previous stop that I had attempted to use. The thought of walking in and using a toilet directly next to 2 guys who are standing there doing there thing was a little…..strange.

Eventually we got back on track, and then it was another good 3 hours or so until we made it to Hiroshima. On the way there I was pretty tired (having gotten maybe 5 hours of sleep the night before) so I figured I’d put my feet up on the seat in front of me and take a nap. Unfortunately, the conductor happened to walk by and told me “kutsu wa dame” (’dame’ was a word that we would soon be hearing quite a bit on our trip, but that’s for later) even doing the nice arms folded into an X gesture that always seems to follow someone telling us dame. I’m not sure if its something that they do regularly, or if its just an over emphasis so that us gaijin will figure out that they mean no. Either way, on an American train no one would have cared if I had my feet up, since the train was completely deserted. The rest of the time on that trip, I think the conductor had it in for me, as it seemed like he was giving me the evil eye from time to time…..

Around 2pm, we finally got into Hiroshima station. Having only the tickets from Hikone to Kyoto being paid for, we tried to find a fare adjustment machine, but there were none. In fact, Hiroshima station didn’t even have any automatic ticket gates, instead there were people taking tickets, or just boxes to drop your tickets in. But, being the good doobies that we are, we brought up our 990yen tickets and waited for them to give us a funny look (since, we had just traveled 6 hours on the local trains to get there). They had to look up our fares in the book, which came out to about 6300yen. Ouch. This would be our cheapest train ticket of the weekend, however. After leaving the station, we took at look at my directions (which, since NONE of the printers at JCMU work, I had to take a picture of a Word document I had intended to print, and every time we had to figure out directions, I had to whip out my camera and zoom in on my picture of the Word document), and figured out that we had to take bus #8 to get to the youth hostel that we had made a reservation at. Well, finding the bus was easy enough, and after a bit of effort and watching other people getting on the bus, we figured out how to get our tickets and pay. The bus ride was about 20 minutes, and the directions had told me to look for a stop called Ushitashinmachi. Well, the bus had announcements of each stop, but the sound was so poor that we couldn’t make out what it said. That and the fact that none of the stops seemed to look like what the directions told us to look for. But, getting to one stop, the bus sat for an extra amount of time, and eventually the driver said “hostel hito ga nai?” meaning “is there no one for the hostel?” or more accurately translated as “silly gaijin, this is your stop!!”. So, thanking the driver profusely, we got off the bus and crossed the street and followed the signs that pointed up a HUGE hill. Once reaching the top of said hill (and having a dozen or so elementary school kids walk by and tell us hello (in English) on the way there), we discovered that the driveway for the hostel turned in the opposite direction and went up yet another steep hill. Luckily, this youth hostel (the Hiroshima Youth Hostel) was only 1700yen a night, so it wasn’t too bad that we had to overexert ourselves just to get to it. When we checked in, we were given our own room (usually you get large rooms with bunk beds and have to share with others), and after unloading all of our luggage, we headed back out to Hiroshima to go to Peace Park.

Unfortunately, to get to Peace Park, we had to take another bus. Now, let me just say, that I don’t like riding busses in Japan. Subways and trains are the way to go. Their course is usually easily found, they are cheap and fast, and if you are confused on where to go, there is usually someone sitting in a little booth that you can go and ask. When it comes to busses, if you cannot read the kanji of the destination you are going to, you are basically screwed. There is no one to ask, and without a map it’s very confusing. It takes longer and is sometimes more expensive. So, when we tried to head out to Peace Park, we kinda wandered around the two bus stops on either side of the street, and eventually a very kind lady came up and talked to us a bit, and we told her we were trying to get back to the station, so she showed us which bus to take. Intending to head back to the station, we realized on the way there that we could probably get off sooner to go to Peace Park. So, once we figured out where we were, we hopped off at Heiwa Dori (Peace Avenue), and walked a bit until we got to Peace Park. Since it was going to be getting dark pretty soon (4:30 or 5pm usually), we hurried to go see the monuments that were outside in Peace Park.

The first thing that we came across was the Genbaku Dome (A-Bomb Dome). The Genbaku Dome, which was originally an exhibition hall at the center of Hiroshima, was located near the hypocenter of the explosion, and was the closest building to actually remain standing. It has been preserved to what it looked like immediately after the bombing, and the city intendeds to keep it that way indefinitely. And it was quite a site to see. Only the shell of the building was left, with lots of bricks and cement blocks flung everywhere, as well its once famous green dome stripped to only its skeleton. It was a very somber site, and as we wandered around and took pictures I wondered what people would think of us being there. Of course we were born many decades after the atomic bomb was dropped, and I’m sure most people our age or those born after the bombing in Japan would have no problem with us being there and wouldn’t look as us as being responsible, but I still felt slightly ashamed that my country had been responsible for this despicable act. There were many people around the Genbaku Dome who had come to pray and leave the traditional paper cranes (we had not made any in advance, and now I wish we had). After leaving the dome, we walked to the Children’s Memorial, which was partially dedicated to Sadako Sasaki, a girl who died of leukemia at the age of 12, 10 years after the bombing. While in the hospital, she tried to fold 1000 paper cranes in order for her wish to be granted. Unfortunately, she died before she was able to fold them all, but soon her classmates started to fold paper cranes and eventually money was raised in Sadako’s name to build a memorial for children who died because of the bombing. Today, you can find many places in Hiroshima where people have left stings of paper cranes as a message of peace. I had hoped to buy some paper cranes so that I could leave them at a monument, but unfortunately I guess everyone brings their own to leave, and we hadn’t even thought about that.

After leaving the Children’s Monument, we wandered towards the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. On the way there, we passed the cenotaph representing all of the victims (if you looked through it you could see the Genbaku Dome, as well as a flame that is set to burn until the use of nuclear weapons has been abolished). Under the cenotaph, there is buried a registry of all the names of the victims of the bombing. At the cenotaph each year on August 6th, they hold a event where they read out a peace declaration. Too bad I wasn’t in Japan in August, I would have liked to go to that. When we got to the museum, we found it to be only 50yen to enter (but 300yen for the audio tour). Once inside, we found it to be a pretty depressing place. The worst thing for me was the wax figures of people with their flesh melting away…..that and the actual photographs of people directly after the bombing (a news photographer happened to be in the city, and he only managed to take 5 pictures because the scenes of horror were too much for him). The museum store (which, for some reason, was in the middle of the museum, and not at the end) didn’t have anything that I thought would be good to buy (though, there was a coin…). And, crazily enough while wandering the museum we ran into one of my classmates from JCMU, a good 6 hours away from JCMU.

After leaving the museum, it was dark in Hiroshima. We were feeling pretty depressed after being in the museum, so we decided to wander around a shopping/entertainment district in Hiroshima and look for a good Japanese restaurant (one requirement of getting 6000yen reimbursed for this weekend’s trip was to eat some Japanese food). You’d think it would be easy to find a Japanese food restaurant IN JAPAN, but apparently not. It seems like foreign food is more popular in restaurants than Japanese food. We found Italian places, coffee places, doughnut places, McDonalds, Wendy’s, KFC (with the Colonel our front dressed like Santa, bit creepy…), etc. (We also found, while walking around, the same person from JCMU who we had bumped into earlier at the museum. What is the probability of bumping into the same person twice, 6 hours away from home, in a city as big as Hiroshima???) There was the occasional sushi place, and while I love sushi, sushi does not love Cassidy. So…after a food hour wandering around the obscene number of clothing stores, we eventually gave up our search and walked into some restaurant called ‘Pizza and Pasta’. It turned out to not only be an awesome restaurant, but really really cheap. For 1100yen I got a pizza, salad, soup, unlimited drinks, and a desert. Quite a bargain in Japan. And the pizza, it actually tasted like real pizza. Yum….

Since we had been wandering aimlessly through downtown Hiroshima, we weren’t sure how to get back to our youth hostel by bus (since, there are no subways ). So we hailed a cab, and tried to tell the guy where the youth hostel was. Eventually he figured it out, and we even got him to drive all the way up the two huge hills for us. Quite a deal. Unfortunately we had to get back to the youth hostel by 10pm because it had a curfew (boo…), but it was ok because we had gotten up at 5:30am that morning and so we were pretty much dead as it was. I was going to attempt to work on some homework that night, but the lack of heat and my warm blankets meant that instead I just went to sleep……

Saturday:

Saturday started off with us waking up around 7:45am and going and checking out that shower facilities of the youth hostel. We were a bit worried that we might find communal showers, which is exactly what happened. Luckily, we were the only ones who seemed to be in the place at the time, so we just took turns guarding the door so no one could come in. However, taking a shower in a non-heated room when its like 45 degrees outside, is not so fun. Luckily, when we were done, we sat in the dining room, which was heated, and ate the doughnuts we had bought the day before, and watched some random Japanese soap opera with a character who cried to less than once every 5 minutes. There was some origami paper laying around, so Cassidy showed me how to fold a paper crane. So, I was able to make at least one paper crane and leave it in Hiroshima. Around 9:30am, we checked out of the youth hostel (luckily they held our bags for us that day), and walked down to the bus stop to make our way to Hiroshima station. From Hiroshima station, we got onto a train and made our way to Miyajimaguchi, the port town for the island of Miyajima. Our 570yen train ticket included our fare for the JR ferry, so once we got to the port we immediately boarded the ferry and made our way to Miyajima.

Miyajima (which is actually just the name of the city on the island, but usually the island is just called Miyajima) is famous in the Shinto religion because it is a sacred island. There are no maternity wards or cemeteries on Miyajima because you are not allowed to give birth or die on the island (I’m curious to know how often this ‘rule’ has been broken). You are also not allowed to cut down trees on the island. There are many tame deer wandering around the island (just like in Nara) as well as many kinds of birds and monkeys. However, Miyajima is most famous for Itsukushima shrine, with its red tori gate ‘floating’ in the ocean in front of the island. When we got onto the island, we walked around Itsukushima shrine, took pictures of the tori, petted some deer, and just generally wandered around. Looked through a lot of cool shops, most of which seemed to specialize in making red bean-filled, maple leaf shaped pancake-like treats. Eventually, we walked up some hills and made it to Momiji-dani Park, a fairly large area with a lot of really pretty maple trees that were all yellow and read. They were different from maple trees in the US in that their leaves were very very small. There were a lot of people in the park looking at the leaves (called kouyou, alternately going out in the spring to look at the cherry trees is called hanami), and after taking lots of pictures of leaves, as well as grabbing a few for the scrapbook (and managing to drop my camera and scrape it all up ), we made it to ropeway that would take us up to Mount Misen, the highest point on Miyajima. The first cable car seated about 7 of us, and it was a 15 minute ride or so up the mountain. We had some great views of the forest, with some of the trees already having their leaves turned, as well as the water and other islands around us. The Seto island area of Japan has many small islands dotted between Honshu and Shikoku, two of the main islands of Japan. After the small cable car, we transferred to a larger one that took about 5 minutes to cross a valley, and then we were up on the top of Mount Misen. We had read that Mount Misen was famous for its monkeys, so we were really excited that we might be able to see some. Unfortunately, (and we didn’t even see this until we were leaving) there was a sign with ‘Monkey Information’ that informed us that ‘The monkeys have gone into the forest to eat.’. Darn…. We did however get to see a whole fleet of some type of battleship (Japan Self Defense Forces? we don’t know) slowing traveling through the sea in front of Miyajima. The weather was wonderful and so we both got lots and lots of great pictures of the scenery.

By the time we went down the mountain, it was about 2pm and we knew that we had to soon get back to Hiroshima, because we had already bought tickets for the Shinkansen to go to Fukuoka at 6:30pm, and we had to go all the way back to the youth hostel to grab our stuff. So, after a bit more shopping and souvenir hunting (we couldn’t find and coins ), we got back on the ferry and headed back to Hiroshima. When we got back, we jumped onto a bus, which seemed to take forever in getting to the stop for the youth hostel. When we got off, we had to run all the way up and down the gigantic hill so that we could make it in time back to the station. We stopped at a bakery to get some food for the ride, and then made our way to the Shinkansen platform. We would be riding in car 13, a reserved seat car, and when the Shinkansen came, we only had a minute or two to jump on and put up our bags before it was on its way again. (One thing about the Shinkansen, it is on time 99.9% of the time (this is a fact, not exaggeration), and as such, when it gets to a station in-between destinations, you literally have 2 minutes to get off/on or else you are screwed.) Even though I have been on the Shinkansen before (twice the last time I was in Japan), it’s still cool to be sitting on such an awesome train. I really don’t know how fast we were going, however we made the trip from Hiroshima to Fukuoka in 1 hour, a trip that would have taken 6 if we had taken the local trains.

Arriving in Fukuoka around 7:30pm, we found the nearest payphone and called the youth hostel that we had intended to stay at. Cassidy talked to the guy, and he told her that once we got to the subway station nearest to the hostel, to call him again and he would come pick us up. This sounded awesome, so we went back into the station and…….attempted to figure out how to get to the youth hostel. A few things that we learned on this trip was that buses suck, and the Kyoto/Nagoya/Osaka area has THE BEST subways/signage/directions in Japan. They are so easy to navigate. Hiroshima and Fukuoka, on the other hand, was insane. Even myself, Nikki “The Navigator” Nabozny was having a very hard time with it all. For one, signs were not in English, which we had become accustomed to. Secondly, all signs with kanji had kanji only. No handy hiragana telling us the readings of the kanji, and thereby the names of the subway stops. So, after wandering way too long around the train station, I finally asked someone where we had to go, and we got onto the correct train. Once on the train, the fact that we would be picked up for the youth hostel soon became not so awesome, as we learned that the youth hostel was 38 minutes away from Hakata station. This would mean that whatever we were doing on Sunday, we would have to leave it 38×2 minutes in advance to go all the way back to the hostel, pick up our luggage, then come all the way back to the station to get on the Shinkansen back to JCMU. Either that or carry our heavy luggage with us all day. Neither of these options seemed good to us. So we decided on the train that we would get off at the next stop and go back to Hakata station and look for a cheap hotel near the station.

Once back at the station, the frustrating hunt for a hotel began. It was about 7:30pm when we started. First, we called up the other youth hostel that is located in Fukuoka, but found it to be completely booked. So, not being able to read the phone book, we walked up to the information desk and looked through a computerized guide for some cheap hotels. Getting a few phone numbers, we went back and called some more hotels. However, every one that we called was full. So Cassidy suggested that we just wander around and go into hotels and ask directly. While this isn’t something that I would normally do, we didn’t have much other choice, so we set out on our quest to find a hotel room. The first hotel that we went to told us that they had a room at the tune of $160/night. So, thinking that was way too expensive, we left and searched out some other places. Every single place we went to we were met with almost the same exact words: dame (bad). Some even gave us the crossed arms dame. At some hotels we got the chotto dame (a little bad), some a sumimasen dame (sorry its bad), and so on. We must have gone to at least 20 hotels, probably more. After a while we decided we would just give up and go back to the place that was $160/night, but on returning they told us that someone had just taken the last room. So, we continued walking, father and father from the station, hoping to find something, ANYTHING!! We were starting to think we’d be sleeping on the streets that night, but then we walked into the Chisen Hotel. When asking “konnban, heya ga arimasuka” (do you have a room available tonight?) we actually heard something other than dame! It didn’t even matter what price they quoted us, my credit card was already on the counter. Luckily they had a ’semi double’ room available, and it would only cost us 11,400 yen (~$100) for the night! Beds! And our own bathroom! And HEAT!! We were so excited. When we got up to the room we found that the semi double meant that there were two tiny beds pushed together, along with a fridge, TV, and a very nice and clean, if small, bathroom.

By this time it was about 9pm, and not wanting to waste any time (we would be leaving Fukuoka at 6:37pm the next day) we set out to find the Hard Rock Cafe. We walked over to Hakata station, which right next door had a bus terminal. Since the Hard Rock Fukuoka is right next to the Fukuoka Dome, and my directions told us to take a bus there (since the subway stop was a 10 minute walk from the Dome), we figured that despite our dislove of buses, we would try to get lucky. Well, we walked into the bus station and we kept walking, looking at all the signs at each ‘doorway’ that led to where a bus stopped and people could exit the building and get on the bus. Well, luckily the word ‘dome’ in Japanese is spelled with katakana and literally reads ‘doumu’, so we were able to finally find one bus with Dome on the list of stops. However, it also had the little Japanese symbol to denote that this line item was negated, basically meaning that it didn’t go to the Dome…… So, walking around the whole place, not finding a single official looking person, I turned to some random guy standing next to me and tried to ask him which bus we should take. Well, the guy took one look at me and TURNED THE OTHER WAY…..and walked away. So at this point I said screw it, and we went downstairs into the subway. From then on we swore off buses altogether.

Getting to our stop, we got out and were able to find a map to figured out where we had to go to get to the Hard Rock Cafe. So, we started walking. It was a bit of a ways from the station, but the weather was nice and there was no one around. Soon, we could see the Dome in front of us, and we also saw that there was a mall attached to it. We could also see that there were a whole lot of buses parked in front of the mall. Then, when we got closer, we could see a huge number of people walking around. We figured maybe there was something going on in the Dome (which we later found out was called the Fukuoka Yahoo! Dome). Unfortunately, we were correct. We had gotten there just as a concert was getting out. So naturally once we located the Hard Rock (directly across from the Dome), the line was already out the door. However, I was going to go in, no matter what. We got in line and luckily got to talk to the hostess who was a native English speaker (yea! English!), and even though I flashed my Hard Rock Cafe Japan card, we didn’t get first in line seating like I would in the US. So, that meant a 30 minute wait for nonsmoking seating. So, while waiting we hit up the gift shop (naturally), and got some nice pics and discounted shirts! I think I’ve got Cassidy slightly addicted to the collecting of HRC stuff as well, eh? (Just be sure to visit some in the US when you go back….you can start with the one in Detroit, and then maybe move on to Cleveland or Chicago :).) We hadn’t killed much time, so we went back into the restaurant and waited in the bar to have our names called. Seems like it took forever, but eventually we got a table. Despite its hefty price tag (1500yen or so), the cheeseburger that I had was one of the best I’ve had in a while, and I still got my money’s worth on the 420yen coke. Once we left, it was around 11:30pm, so we headed back to the train station, and hoped that we hadn’t missed the last train. Getting there around 11:45pm, we were able to catch the second-to-last train back to Hakata station, and from there we walked back to our hotel room. I was able to take advantage of the nice, clean, heated shower, and afterwards we watched an episode of ER (commercial free and in English!) on our little TV. We both attempted to work on homework but I don’t think either of us got much done.

Sunday:

Sunday we woke up around 8:30am, took our showers and got dressed, and then brought our key down to the front desk and asked if they could hold our bags. Luckily, they told us that they could hold them as long as we wanted (yes!). So, off we went on our day in Fukuoka/Hakata (which, we both had trouble with not saying Hataka instead of Hakata….for some reason its just easier to say Hataka), and while Cassidy still had some doughnuts left over from the day before, I hadn’t had breakfast. So we stopped at the always available McDonalds (I swear there are more of these per square kilometer here than in the US), where I had some hash browns and a McMuffin…which I thought was a McBiscuit. Oh well. So, getting onto the subway again, our first stop of the day was Fukuoka tower! Yes, without fail, every large city in Japan has a tower, which means we must go! (They also usually always have coins…) The weather was one again fabulous, so we were able to get some great pictures of the tower, both outside of it, and of the views of the city and bay around it. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to do inside of the tower….besides buy a coin…but once we went down we found this cute thing where you stick your faces in the cut out, and this time it was a Christmas scene. We couldn’t find anyone to take our picture together, so we did it separate, but once getting back to JCMU I stuck them both together, so now you can’t even tell.

After leaving Fukuoka Tower, we had spied some large Ferris wheels, and so we decided to go over to visit them. We had no choice but to take a bus, which entailed another long walk (though we think we probably got off at the wrong stop this time), but eventually we arrived at an outlet mall type place called Marinoa. It was right on the water, and there were a lot of boats docked everywhere, and it made me realllllllyyyy want to go swimming (despite the probably 50F water). The temperature outside had been rising all morning, and even though we had been previously walking around Hiroshima and Miyajima in our winter coats, we were taking them off and rolling up our sleeves. We were definitely in southern Japan. Getting into Marinoa, we wandered around some of the shops (there was yet another awesome Totoro store there, and I yet again pondered buying a cool Totoro backpack…..it will probably be mine before I leave this country), and we actually found a store selling clothes with Japanese on them! Sadly they turned out to be rather unattractive and pricey clothing. Eventually we found our way to the larger of two Ferris wheels at the mall, and so we rode on it for about 20 minutes at the tune of 800yen. We were able to one again get lots of pictures of the water and surroundings. After getting off the Ferris wheel, we decided that we had better fulfill our requirement of needing to eat Japanese food on our trip, so we found a tasty looking place (which had slightly deceptive advertising, I thought it was a tempura place, turned out to be your generic noodle restaurant). So we had tenpura udon and tendon, and afterwards walked next-door to Baskin Robbins where I think they had way more exciting sounding flavors than their US counterparts. Carmel Apple Fondue? Oh yeah…it was good, though I’m not sure which part of it was the ‘fondue’. Cassidy got a cute little snowman ice cream creation.

While eating our ice cream we slowly walked back to in the general direction of the nearest subway station. The maps we had gotten from the information station inside Hakata station turned out to be not so helpful, so I ended up having to ask some kids passing us by on bicycles how to get to Meinohama station. They pointed us in the right direction (though, they didn’t seem too sure that it was the right direction), and so we trudged in that direction. By this point on our trip, we were both getting pretty exhausted, and our legs and feet were pretty much killing us. But, not wanting to waste the fact that we were in Kyushu for such a short time, we got on the subway and got off at Ohori-koen, a park which supposedly had the largest water garden in the city. Well, we got there and found the water garden to pretty much be some ponds with bridges over them. It wasn’t too exciting, however the ponds had the BIGGEST carp I have ever seen. I think they might have been bigger than me. I’m sure at least some of them were pushing 100lbs. I’m not sure if it was because they were so old, or if they were just so fat from the food that you could buy in the park to feed them. Above the carp, there were a bazillion crazed seagulls flying around trying to get food from people. They were different from your regular seagull in that they were actually in the water, instead of circling waterless parking lots, and they had a very high pitched call. Lots of people were on one specific bridge, throwing food out to them and trying to feed them from their hands. So, having a couple packets of crackers in my backpack, I figured that I’d join in too. The seagulls went insane whenever I’d toss food at them, and when I held out a cracker at arms length, I had a bunch of them circle me, get really close, and eventually they started to come up and grab it out of my hand. I was able to do this a couple times, and Cassidy even got it on video. It made the otherwise dull park pretty fun.

After leaving the park, and having only a couple more hours to kill before having to get on the Shinkansen to go back to JCMU, we decided that we wanted to try to find some Fukuoka/Kyushu souvenirs. One thing about Japan that is kinda annoying is that there really aren’t any good places to find things to buy as souvenirs. Sure you have your boxed cookies and your keychains, but we wanted to find something nicer, maybe like craft goods that were representative of the area. We first tried our luck at the Hakata Folk Museum, which I had picked up a brochure for, and which advertised a shop where they sold local craft items (we figured it would be something like the Kyoto Handicraft Center). Well, getting there, we found the store to be small and not smelling anything of much value. So, we set off for a mall called Canal City that was close by instead. Navigating was a little tricky, but luckily we were able to find it pretty quickly. And once we did, it turned out to be the largest mall that I have ever seen. It was 6 levels, and each level had stores inside and outside. There was even a river running through the middle of it. However, we were both very disappointed because the entire place was nothing but store after store of insanely high priced designer clothing. There was even a Gucci and a Brooks Brothers for petes sake. (They did have a Totoro store though…) So, giving up, we were heading out, and then spied one store that looked slightly promising. Bought a few souvenirs and presents there, however I didn’t feel that it was enough.

At this point we only had about an hour and a half to go before we had to catch the Shinkansen. We weren’t sure where we were in relation to our hotel, so we hailed a cab in front of the mall. Little did we know that our hotel was about 2 blocks away. Oh well. Once back in the hotel, we grabbed our bags and headed back to Hakata station. There was an underground mall, so we decided to have a look around. Didn’t find anything in the way of souvenirs, but we did find a cool store selling paper and scrapbooking goods, where I was able to pick up some cool stickers and nice mulberry paper. I also picked up a few food items for the upcoming train item (some tenpuraed stuff as well as a beautiful piece of cake from a sweets store, which they wrapped up in a little box AND included a little mini ice pack?!? so cool…), and then we wandered over to the McDonalds again so that Cassidy could grab some food. I was going to refrain and just eat my tenpura on the train, however the fact that the Japan exclusive ‘Ebi Filet-O’ would be leaving in about 4 days and I had yet to try it, so I figured what the heck. It actually was fairly decent tasting at first, but after a while the sight and smell of the little shrimps deep fried into a patty kinda got to me….so I guess its good it was only for a limited time. At this point we only had 15 minutes to make our train, so we left the McDonalds and went into the station. Since we were in Hakata, which is the end of the line for the Shinkansen, our train was already waiting for us. We were able to stow away our baggage, and run back out to grab some drinks from a vendor on the train platform. We also took some pictures of ourselves from outside the Shinkansen, however the picture of me didn’t turn out.

6:37pm on the dot, the train took off, and our 3.5 hour ride back to Maibara station (the closest station that the Shinkansen stops at to JCMU, its luckily only one stop away from Hikone). We both had homework due on Monday morning, and since it was already dark outside, we couldn’t see much in the way of scenery. We were also both completely exhausted and sore and to the point where everything that we did was completely hilarious (well, to me anyway….). I did manage to get most of the 3 page speech I had to write (in Japanese of course) done on the course of the ride, in-between eating my pretty little cake and some of my tenpura. Our train car (car #12, a reserved car), was pretty much deserted for the entire ride, except naturally for the seats directly behind us. At least 3 different grounds of people sat in those two seats while the rest of the seats remained empty as we went from stop to stop. Eventually, at 10:10pm, we arrived at Maibara station, which when we got out of the Shinkansen, we noticed was really really COLD. Long gone was tropical (ha!) Kyushu, we were back to reality. We dragged our dead limbs and bags out to the exit of the station, where for a moment I thought I had lost my ticket (luckily I had only dropped it). Exiting the station, we hailed a cab (and naturally the guy knew exactly where we were going before we even said anything, I mean where else are two gaijin gonna go in the middle of nowhere Hikone), so we had a pleasant 20 minute ride back in a heated car. We got back to JCMU around 10:30pm, where instead of being able to take a shower and go right to sleep, I had to stay up and finish writing my speech (which didn’t happen and I had to finish it instead at 6:30am the next morning). So, if you’ve made it all the way through to the end of this post, this is the end of my trip!! And now, pictures:

Friday:

Our youth hostel in Hiroshima:

Genbaku (A-Bomb) Dome and Peace Park Cenotaph:

Children’s Memorial in Peace Park:

Hiroshima station and downtown Hiroshima at night:

Saturday:

Miyajima-guchi, and the ferry going to Miyajima:

Approaching the island, and a pagoda:

The famous tori:

Cassidy and I in front of the tori, and more shika!:

Momiji (maple trees) in Momiji-dani park:

Going up Mount Misen:

A warning sign for monkeys, which we didn’t see, and a picture of some military vessels, which we did:

On top of Mount Misen:

Leaving Hiroshima by Shinkansen, and arriving in Fukuoka/Hakata:

Sunday:

Hard Rock Cafe Fukuoka and our impromptu hotel:

Fukuoka Tower:

Inside and outside of the Ferris wheel in Marinoa:

Ohori-koen, with its crazy seagulls:

An interesting statue outside of Meinohama station, and Canal City, the biggest mall I have ever seen:

Cassidy, looking really excitied to be on the Shinkansen headed back to Maibara:

Plus, you can watch a couple videos that Cassidy took of my trying to feed the crazy seagulls. Right-click to save them to your computer, and then play them:
Seagulls 1
Seagulls 2
Seagulls 3