Day 33

Started the day with a breakfast buffet at the hotel. Biggest breakfast I had so far, and it was about time I had something decent. Bread and onigiri from the convenience store gets pretty awful after awhile.

With my stomach full, I went to the Hiroshima Castle just for a quick view of it, then walked all the way to this empty tree I don't know the name of, and finally arriving at the A-Bomb Dome. I think I was six days early for the yearly anniversary. People tie origami (folded paper) in a long knot to remember the people who died.

Took the tram back to Hiroshima station to get some local speciality, Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, before getting on the train to Nagasaki. The resturant floor had only teppan food resturants like this one, and they all went crazy when a customer walked by, doing anything to make them choose their resturant. The one I chose was cool, and I could finally conversate in Japanese without them acting like I'm stupid. The chef was pretty skilled with the tools, and I mentioned Teppan Shoujo Akane (drama with Horikita Maki), but they didn't know about it. Obviously they knew AKB, but they seemed to be more proud of Perfume, who are from Hiroshima.

The train to Nagasaki was called Sonic, and both exterior design and interior looked nice with leather seats. Seats were more comfortable, but overall more inconvenient than the regular Shinkansen.

I headed straight for the hotel to get some rest. Both Nagasaki and Hiroshima were hotter than Tokyo. In the evening I went up the ropeway to Mt. Inasa. Didn't get too good pictures.

At the ground station there was a small temple with this cool dragon named Shenlong (Shinryu in Japanese). It's a spiritual dragon from Chinese mythology that controls wind and rain.

Day 32

Time to head out to west Japan. First stop is Hiroshima for more regular sightseeing. Something that puzzles me, is that Japan is so famous for having such good service, but the the way I experience it is that the service is extremely bad at famous tourist spots. I just wanna punch them in the face when I ask or say something in Japanese and get a reply in English like I'm stupid. Anyway, what I especially wanted to see was Miyajima, one of the Three Wonders in Japan. I only knew about a red shrine on water, and the large torii gate.

After seeing those, which went on pretty quickly, I walked around the town a little bit and noticed that there's alot to see on the island's biggest mountain, Mt Misen. There was a ropeway but I decided to walk the 2.2km trail up the mountain since it would feel more of an achievement. Was pretty much alone on the trail all of the time except for two or three groups of gaijins.

Up at the summit there was some big rocks and an obstacle-free 360 panoramic view.

Walked another path down which was longer, and stopped by a complete empty sky shrine.

Finally back down at the big gate I wanted to wait abit for the low tide so I could get closer.

On Miyajima there are alot of wild deers going around trying to snatch food from tourists.

Then back to Hiroshima to try to find the hotel. Spent another 2 hours walking in the dark trying to find it. When I asked for directions at one of the bigger train stations, they told me there are no stations, and that I had to walk or take a cab, but there's a big fucking monorail-type station right there. There was very little light, almost none at all, along the sidewalks. And they were very narrow and dangerous. When I finally found the hotel, there was a group of school students sitting in the lounge room who said I was looking cool. I answered that it was hot, haha.