Another day goes by. When we tour like this time goes by so incredibly fast! We toured to the Osaka-jo (Jo-means castle) and then made the long haul to Hiroshima where we would spend one night.
The Castle was incredible. I would be a Shogun in Japan if I got a place like that!! Not to mention a small group of us managed to get a tour guide around the park who named himself "Tokyo boy". He was an older man and he showed us the best places to take pictures and told us jokes, his english was quite good so it was fun to see him scurry around and try to help us. We took a few pictures with him before we had to go!
The trip to Hiroshima was a supposed 4 hours. There must be a "Japan minute" which could be in relation to a "Mexican minute". It was supposed to be 4 hours... it turned into 6 after we stopped for a bathroom break and then drove an hour and a half (we were all practically starving by this point) and then stopped for lunch at a rest stop. Lunch was worked differently than we were used to. You instered your money into a vending machine, it spit out a ticket and you took it to the counter, only to then be given your food! All the drinks you get from the vending machine unless it is water or green tea.
Once in Hiroshima it was an icky mix of snow and rain but lucky me! I had my umbrella that I bought in Osaka the night before! We went to the A-bomb museum and peace park which was very educational, depressing, and... well...awkward. Everyone had the same feeling going into this that we were American's out goverment was the one that made the decision to completely level the city, but the Japanese actually forgive us for it they said because it pulled them out of the war. There was a lot of sad pictures and the exhibits were graphic making a lasting impression. We walked around the park in the rain and saw the Dome, and rang the bell for world peace and then got on the bus only to be transfered to the hotel!
After checking into the hotel we had the evening to ourselves to do dinner and wander around Hiroshima. You can tell that this city is not like Osaka, because a lot of the buildings are new and not the traditional brick tiled roofs. (But I wonder why that is? -.- ) Hiroshima is a very nice city though, very enjoyable. Marissa and I agreed to go shopping on our own and rode the street cars across town to a mall where the were a store I was looking for and I had made a very important purchase- very important to me at least and maybe one other person. The street car system in Hiroshima is quite fun! It is 150 standard fare no matter where you are going or what car you get on and you pay when you get off the car. It took us a little bit to get to the street cars because we thought the map was for the train but we asked the ticket master and he pointed us in the right direction. We also got help from a nice gentleman who pointed us in the way of the mall after we got off the car and walked down the street. The map we were using was really very tiny and hard to read. After shopping we both headed back to the hotel after much adventuring on our own, only to go to bed!
