Takirev’09 – Day 4 (Hiroshima)

22nd January

We took the shinkansen to Hiroshima, and on the journey there, we had oishii gyoza :) I had onigiri too, and I remember taking pics for Azuki while she did “the chopsticks thing” :D

This is a board at the Hiroshima station (I think), of Miyajima.

When we reached the Miyajima ferry terminal, the ferry was about to leave. I remember us running onto the ferry just before it moved… and the crew were like hurrying us, not even checking our passes. I usually have sea sickness and brought pills to Japan just for this ferry ride, but BAKAMI forgot to bring it out that day… Having no medicine with me, I was thinking I’d use my medicated oil as a substitute… but it turned out that it wasn’t needed at all. I didn’t even feel sick on the ride! I think the ferry was huge and the water was calm, that’s why. In any case, we were toooooo busy taking pictures of ourselves, ourselves + hidezos, ourselves + takki doll, ourselves + hidezos + takki doll…. that time seemed to pass so fast!

We were the only 3 crazy gaijins on the top deck of the ferry. The other passengers of the ferry were downstairs in the room lol. I took pictures of so many things, from the sea (and the sun was there but it was too bright that I didn’t realise it was in the picture), the waves, and even the view of the torii from far (it looked so chicchai~ ^^) XD

On our way to the Itsukushima shrine, we had to walk past deers… Many deers! Hehe~ and Azuki even had a fun time with one particular deer-chan, who kept following us becoz of the dango that Azuki & Kat were sharing. That deer-chan had the stick in its mouth, and Azuki had to pull it out with force. Deer-chan even ate a tissue lol…

And I saw the toilet that only headless ppl and one-legged women can use *lol* It’s still the same as when Naughtiest was there! XDDD

We took LOADS of pictures, and I really mean it when I said LOADS. I think most of my camera’s memory card were filled with pics of Miyajima! XD It was so beautiful!! I love the big torii!! And as it was low tide, we could walk very near it to take pics :) This is just ONE of the many pics we took in front of the ootorii!

And this is Itsukushima shrine from the ootorii. As you can see, it’s low tide when we went.

Tono came here to take pictures for the Enbujo’08 pamphlet, so this place means so much to me, since Enbujo’08 means so much to me hahaha… We paid to enter the shrine, and took a walk once through it… It was really beautiful ne!! I took so many pictures of it. And we were guessing where Tono took the photos…

This is my favourite photo. I can’t remember which part of the shrine this is, but I love how the photo turned out – the colors and angle.

There’s also a very steep bridge which was out of bounds… If it was high tide, and the water flowing through the shrine, it would look very pretty. Maybe next time I’ll go at night, when it’s high tide, and it’ll look just like in the Enbujo’08 pamphlet, with lights reflecting in the water… It must be a very beautiful sight!

We exited the shrine and walked along some omiyage shops.

Most of the shops were closed. And actually there were very few ppl there at the island. We found a place selling oysters. Apparently, Hiroshima is famous for its oysters! Those grilled oysters (the man was grilling it outside) looked DAMN GOOD!!! Ahhh.. next time if I go there, I’d definitely try it. This time, coz I was saving $$, I only had boiled oysters udon (not very good~)… maa~ but I remember the “western style” toilet in that shop was really high-tech! LOL

After this, we took the ferry back and headed to the Atomic Dome, taking the local tram thing. By the time we reached the Atomic Dome, guess what, it was DARK! And guess what~~ it was under renovation!!! We were like… What? we came all the way here yo!! Sigh…. and as it was dark, the pictures we took (even with night mode) came out dark (and some came out scarrrrry too coz it was greeeen light~~ eeeks!)!

I was wearing Azuki’s boots the entire day coz mine gave way the night before~ so I HAD to get a new pair of boots today! We walked to a nearby shopping street, and that’s where I found my new pair of grey boots~ it was on offer so it only cost 2,990yen! A really good deal ne~

After getting my boots, we started to worry if we could catch the shinkansen back to Osaka in time! We can’t spend our night in Hiroshima yo!! So we rushed, took the tram back to Hiroshima station, and RAN (yes, we 3 ran to the station) straight to the station master to ask if there’s a shinkansen back. Fortunately there was!! We could finally relax a bit on the shinkansen ride, which was about 1.5 hrs… and when we reached Osaka station, we reserved the next morning’s 9.15am shinkansen to Tokyo… took a bus back to our hotel…

It was our last night in Osaka, so we went back to the shop we went to on the very first night, and had that salad with fried pork dish. We just HAD to eat it again! XD As there was alot of packing to do, we didn’t have time to go for onsen u__u, but it was fun packing and all that. I tore apart all the magazines that I bought, so that it won’t be so heavy!!! But I tore them till I pulled a muscle in my right arm… you know how strong the glue is for binded mags like ANECAN!! Haiz… Anyway, Kat & Azuki went to bed earlier than me… By the time I went to bed, it was past 3am…

I had about 2-3hrs of sleep that night.