25 April 2009

This morning was once again moving day. We had to be moved out of the weekly mansion by 11am, so I had to pack and clean all morning. We will continue to rent out one of the weekly mansion rooms for this upcoming week, so we can take only what we need for the week long trip. The designated room was Norio and Blake’s, so everyone moved their luggage into their small room. There was so much luggage that we could barely walk around in there. We weren’t scheduled to take the Shinkansen bullet train to Hiroshima until 3:49pm, so I wanted to visit one more site before leaving. It was horribly raining, but I decided upon Momoyama Castle. It was about five or six stops south from Kyoto Station on the JR Line, but I figured we had plenty of time. Jeff, Shae, and Derrick joined me for the journey.
I had initially seen Momoyama Castle from the top of Kyoto Tower, and I have wanted to visit it. I had researched that the actual castle was no longer open for viewing, but the castle grounds were supposedly very beautiful. Even though it was raining, the train ride would be free once I redeemed by first Japan Rail Pass. We walked to that station and grabbed a quick bite to eat at McDonalds. I had already had a small breakfast, so I instead tried the green tea and Oreo McFlurry. It was so good, and I definitely can’t get there in America! After finishing our meal, we went to the JR office in Kyoto Station to redeem our rail passes. It took about 15 minutes of long waiting to get it, but once we got them, we left for Momoyama.
It was a really good thing that I had my Blackberry with me because we heavily utilized the map feature on it to find out way to Momoyama Castle. It was raining, but the walk wasn’t too bad once we made the correct turns on the correct streets. The castle was really large in scale, and it was really beautiful. We didn’t have too much time to photograph it, but it was enough since it was raining. We made it back to the weekly mansion in order to pick-up our luggage for our week long trip, then headed to the station. The ride on the Shinkansen was so cool. It was really fast and really smooth. The closest thing I can compare it to is a ride on an airplane. We had to transfer once, so the total travel time to Hiroshima was about an hour and half.
We arrived in Hiroshima just in time for dinner. We checked into the hotel and surprisingly got single occupancy rooms. It was such a relief since most of us have been getting sick of always being stuck with the same people. The bed was large, and the room was average size. I was starving, so for dinner, I went to a noodle shop with Norio, Blake, and Derrick. I got udon, and it was the best udon I’ve ever had. We later realized that Hiroshima is known for its okonomiyaki, but it was ok. Okonomiyaki was pretty expensive, at least in our area of town, so the cheaper choice of noodles was one I was satisfied with.
The rest of the night, I hung out with Derrick and we watched a Japanese movie on tv while uploading photos and blogs. It was a relaxing night, and I was able to get a very good night’s sleep for our big day of exploring Hiroshima and moving to Miyajima tomorrow.