Monday April 7th 

It was time to take our first bullet train. We took a taxi to the train station and bought our Shinkansen tickets. They are not cheap, but the train was 2 ½ hours to get to Hiroshima instead of a 6 hour drive. The boys got bento boxes to eat on the train, they all enjoyed those. Jumping on a streetcar to our hotel, we successfully managed public transportation. It’s so nice to be able to just tap our Suica cards from our Apple Wallet for all local public transport. Our hotel was called The Knot Hiroshima and it was a really nice hotel with a gorgeous lobby and bar on the top floor overlooking the pretty city and mountains surrounding it. We dropped our luggage and immediately went over to the Peace Museum and Memorial. The museum was well done, but obviously very hard to see the pictures of all of those people suffering from the atomic bomb. Not only the immediate effects but also the lingering effects of the radiation on the people who survived. It was crazy to see how the force of the blast was able to bend metal and throw glass shards into stone embedding them in the walls. The whole museum and the town for that matter is all about peace, no more nukes, let’s not have this happen again. In the peace park they have this museum then lots of other memorials honoring the different groups of people who died there. A children’s memorial has lots of origami cranes making up chains of hope and different designs. The park was beautiful with all of the cherry blossoms in bloom which line the river. We continued to walk through the park stopping to honor the memorials along the way. Our next stop was Orizuru Tower, a 9 story high tower that you walk up, each floor has an artist mural on the wall. We had a quest to answer the questions about each mural as we were going up. On the 8th floor we stopped to learn how to make our own origami crane. It was hard, I had to ask for additional help twice! Paul was pretty good at this, he said all of his paper airplane making in his past forged the way for him! Continuing up to the top floor, which was floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city. There was a small bar so we of course grabbed a drink to sit and look out on the gorgeous view. We were lucky because it wasn’t crowded at all. I had more items on my self-guided tour, but the boys wanted to get back to the hotel and chill for a bit, so we made it back in time for Knot Hour-happy hour. We got some snacks and drinks and sat in the rooftop bar for a bit, then took a rest before heading out to dinner. I had reservations at a Yakinuki restaurant, which is a meat restaurant where you cook your own food over a coal fire on your table. I was really looking forward to this place because it’s one of the few types of food I can eat here. Unfortunately, they served very different types of meat than we are used to, some of which were so chewy, I literally could not chew them. No knives and forks here so we couldn’t rely on them. They served us tongue and intestines and heart and so many other things that we couldn’t read or the translation was just off, that we didn’t eat. We all agreed the tiny salad was the best thing all night! It was such a disappointment, and unfortunately a waste of food and money! That was our most expensive dinner so far and none of us liked it. Not sure if we are just picky, or what, because this place had a lot of good reviews. 

Tuesday April 8th 

Off to Miyajima, an island off the coast of Hiroshima. After grabbing breakfast at 7/11 and Starbucks we took a 45 minute ferry from the Peace Park to Miyajima. It was nice going down the river and out into the open seas, seeing all the oyster farms and factory. Miyajima is a quaint little village overrun by tourists! They have a shrine with tori gates (those red gates you see in pictures) on the beach, but at high tide it appears the tori gate is floating in the water. We were lucky to see it submerged and dry. It is pretty with the mountains surrounding it. The village has a few narrow streets lined with shops and restaurants. On one of these streets Paul found a beer vending machine! I knew of a place that had gluten free fried chicken so I searched out that place for lunch for myself and Paul got GF beef curry from the same place. It was take out only when we went, which suited us fine, we got to people watch as we sat on a bench. The fried chicken was delicious! I was so happy. We were supposed to take a cable car to the top of the mountain, but winds picked up and closed it. Paul and Kyle decided they were going to hike up the mountain anyway, Braydon and I stayed behind to wander the village. Paul and Kyle had a hard hike up, but were rewarded with stunning views. Braydon and I suffered the wrath of the winds, which were blowing the sand from the beach all through the streets. We had to duck our heads and cover our eyes to avoid getting sand in them. The gusts were very strong and ended up making it too dangerous for our ferry (which was a smaller fast ferry) to go out in the choppy seas. We were forced to take the public much bigger ferry to a different part of the mainland then take a long streetcar back to our hotel, but all in all it worked out fine, just took longer and more of a hassle. We rested for a bit back at the hotel and changed out of our sandy clothes before attempting to find dinner. I had plans for a specific restaurant that served up Hiroshima’s specialty, Okonomiyaki, but with gluten free options. Unfortunately when we got there they were all booked up for the evening. So then we tried to go to 4-5 other places but none of them could accommodate gluten free. So we sent the boys off to find their own dinner and Paul and I grabbed stuff from 7/11 (are you seeing a trend here??) and ate at the rooftop bar in the hotel. We met a very nice German couple who live in Switzerland, so we enjoyed talking with them for the evening. The boys found some delicious food on their own. Everyone says Japan has amazing food, but so far we’ve found it to be a little intimidating, this is when it would be nice to have a local tell us where to go and what is safe for me to eat. It certainly doesn’t help that I’m picky and don’t like tongue or intestines or seafood!