Arrival

Our flight to Japan was rather uneventful. Instead of taking transit as originally intended, my father very nicely drove Jennifer and me to the airport for our 1pm departure. We arrived early and cleared security ahead of the crowd.

The flight itself took ten and a half hours to complete. Airplanes are not normally very exciting places to spend time. Fortunately, the flight was helped along by a dizzying selection of in-flight movies, and each seat had its own screen. I barely had time to catch Cloverfield, The Golden Compass, The Bucket List, a documentary on the Yangtze river in China, and the Return of the King before the flight was over. We landed in Japan much sooner than expected.

Our first task was navigating the Kansai international airport. We soon discovered the JR rail office and exchanged our purchase orders for Rail Passes. Eventually - and not without considerable help from the station staff - we navigated our way to the hotel.

Since we arrived in Japan about two hours earlier than our tickets advertised, we explored the area around the hotel. It felt good to walk. We debated trying our luck at a sit down dinner, but the idea of ordering food in Japanese on our first night proved too intimidating. We grabbed some food from the local market instead.

This morning we woke early and explored the area around Osaka some more. It was just before 6am, but already people were on the streets walking to work. We did a walk-by of the Umeda Sky Tower and looked for a place to eat breakfast.

About 8 am we decided it was time to head to Hiroshima. We decided to walk to JR Shin-Osaka. As it turned out, that was a poorly conceived idea. After about a half hour walk north in the supposed direction of the station, we discovered that someone put a river in our way.

I flagged down a local passerby and asked her for directions to Shin-Osaka. To my delight and amazement, she understood my question. Even better, I understood her answer. Unfortunately, her answer told me we had to go back to where we started. And so we re-traced our steps, found a tourist info booth, and got ourselves educated on the wonders of the Japanese rail system.

The trip to Hiroshima itself was considerably less eventful.

We arrived in the city shortly before noon. We checked our list of accomodations and set our for Hotel FLEX, the nearest of the hotels to JR Hiroshima. We booked our room, had a delicious lunch at a nearby cafe, and decided to visit Shukkeien garden. The admission was a modest 250Y per person. We spent a few hours strolling the garden paths and photographing the local wildlife and scenery.

In the evening we set out for okonomimura, a street of vendors selling Hiroshima`s famous okonomiyaki. Or, as it is translated in Fodor`s guide, `as you like it`. It is sort of an upside down omelet with noodles and seafood. We found a quaint restaurant that wasn`t too busy, siddled up to the bar, and ordered our food.

The okonomiyaki was delicious! But far too much food for one person to eat. Stuffed full to bursting, we sidled back to our hotel room to turn in for the night. Tomorrow morning we visit the Peace Memorial and Hiroshima castle in the morning, then take the ferry over to Miyajima for the afternoon.