26 April 2009

Even though I went to bed somewhat early last night, I still overslept a bit this morning. I was planning to get up around 8am to get complementary breakfast in the hotel with Norio and Derrick at 8:30am. I woke-up at 9am however and ended up having to wake-up Derrick, who had overslept, as well. Since breakfast ended at 9:30am, we rushed downstairs after getting dressed and brushing our teeth. Breakfast consisted of toast, miso soup, nigiri, pickled vegetables, water, orange juice, tea, and coffee. I tried everything, and it was all very good. Afterwards, we packed up our stuff and met in the lobby at 10:30am. We left our luggage at the hotel in the lobby and embarked on our way to the A-Bomb site. Once at the site, we visited the Genbaku Dome (A-Bomb Dome) and the Memorial Museum. Seeing Genbaku Dome was a very moving and emotional experience. In a sense, it was almost surreal, and it was just really sad to think of all the suffering the bomb inflicted upon innocent bystander. The museum was really intense as well. For lunch, I got some yakitori and milk tea from the basement of a department store.
We all met back up at the hotel in Hiroshima, got our luggage, then proceeded to take the Shinkansen to Miyajima. We took the JR train line to get there since it wasn’t too far. After getting to the Miyajima subway station, we took the JR ferry boat to the actual island of Miyajima. All of this travel was, of course, free with our Japan Rail Passes.
When we got to Miyajima, we dragged our luggage to the Morinoyado Ryokan. The city had a completely different feel to it, but I definitely enjoyed it. We decided to have dinner at 6:30pm, so Jeff, Shae, and I ventured out to explore. We saw the famous tori gate in the water when the tide was low, so the entire bottom of the tori was exposed. It was really cool. For dinner, we had to wear our given ukatas and sit on the floor to eat. The Japanese dinner had some of the best food items I had ever eaten. I wish we were staying there longer. Since the hotel was technically a ryokan, Shae and I tried out the public bath together. It was an interesting experience to share with people that you know since you have to wash together in an open atmosphere and sit in the hot bath naked together. I really liked the relaxing nature of it, but it was still a bit awkward to do with friends.
The rest of my night was spent hanging out in Jeff, Derrick, Seth, and Blake’s room. It was Jeff’s 22nd birthday so we were all just hanging out and having a good time. Tomorrow we will have a full day of self-exploration in Miyajima, so I’m excited to see how that turns out.