"We're boring on Friday night!"

So, this kid's jacket had a bunch of patches on the back each depicting a different, correctly labeled sport (soccer, baseball, basketball, and so on) with one small exception...

広島...パート2

April 9th-10th:

• Left: the A-bomb dome.
• Right: Heiwa-koen ("Peace Park") + Peace Museum. You'll cry if you go, but it's worth the trip. You won't think about war the same way ever again.

• Left: collections of paper cranes near a memorial to...
• Right: Sadako Sasaki

• Left: O-konomi-yaki, Hiroshima's famous local cuisine. Somewhat like a pizza, though basically none of the ingredients are the same. (Unless, of course, your one of those people who puts things on pizza that just aren't supposed to be there...) This tasty looking dish is mine; it's got egg, soba noodles and batter on the bottom, then it's topped with paper-thin sliced beef, cheese, green onions, o-konomi-yaki sauce (yes, there's a sauce specifically for this), and pickled ginger (that's the pink stuff on top). Mayonnaise is the condiment of choice for o-konomi-yaki eaters, but I opted to go without.
• Right: it was D-licious...

• Left: Kin-tai-kyo, a famous bridge and also World Heritage site. This is located in tiny, rural Iwakuni city, Yamaguchi prefecture, about 45 minutes from Hiroshima by train. Thought that if I went this far out into the countryside that I'd be able to escape all the tourists, but alas, Iwakuni is also the location of a US Marines base. There were white people everywhere.
• Right: Not only should you remove your shoes upon entering a Japanese house, but--according to old people--you should also remove them when you step onto a picnic mat...and don't just throw them over there. Line them up properly over here. Thaaat's right.

• Left: more of the Iwakuni local park area
• Right: Hagiyaki, a traditional form of Japanese pottery originating in the Hiroshima/Yamaguchi area.

Hiroshima (finally...but only "part 1")

I suppose two months without posting is long enough...

Here are a few shots of the first day and a half of my trip to Hiroshima (April 7th-8th):

• Left: Shukkeien, a traditional garden about 10 minutes on foot from my hotel.
• Right: Same garden, September 1945. Who would have thought that a scene now so beautiful was the image of destruction only 60 years ago... (The bridge at the center is the very same as the one in my photo.)

• Left and right: Hiroshima Castle

• Left: a view of the city from the top of the castle
• Right: a view of the city from...the city

• Left: Islands in Hiroshima Bay (Inland Sea of Japan). Taken from the ferry on the way to Miyajima Island.
• Right: On the island. Deer. Everywhere. Poop, too.

• Left: an overview, so to speak, of the temple + related edifices
• Right: What can I say...I'm a sucker for roof shapes. (Same pagoda as the previous picture, just much closer, obviously.)

• Left: could not have visited during a better week of the year
• Right: the island's main attraction

Stay tuned...