Ark Hiroshima

This is my first travelpod entry! I love to travel around the world so much, but let me write about my small hometown first.<br> I live in Iwakuni city, Japan. Iwakuni is a small town near Hiroshima, where an atomic bomb was first dropped about 65 years ago.<br> Iwakuni is famous for ...

... A-Bomb museum and saw the dome which is still partially standing from the attack. From there we walked to the Hiroshima Castle and marveled from the outside as we were to cheap and tired to pay to go in.<br><br>Making our way back to the hostel, we saw that they were setting up a band to play on a boat on the river and setting up lights all around the river shore. Probably would have been a good event to watch, except that once again, we were in to much pain to stand around ...

... bus or train or subway, you fall asleep within seconds. Doesn't matter if you are sitting standing or walking, like a fine choreographed hypnotist, the second the door closes, heads drop. Birnie also suffers from this disease. It is quite comedic watching birnie and all of the japanese people snap their head around as they doze off in the seated or standing position. It's a beautiful thing and never gets old. As I type this blog entry, birnie is laying ...

... and headed for Miyajima. That was a long streetcar ride, but it was pretty and we even went across the ocean at points. We finally arrived at our destination and then jumped on a ferry! It was so cool! We took many pictures from the deck, and it was such a nice day, so the ocean looked lovely! We got to Miyajima island and the first thing we saw after getting outside was a deer. It was so cute! It was ...

... we visited every floor to decide where to stay, some accidently a few more times than once, much to the hilarity of the waitresses on floor 4. We also had our first taste of local sashimi, tempura and sake and it was brilliant. We then went to the only bar we could find that was open - an English sports bar called BLKS showing the Liverpool-Man City game live. Not exactly traditionally Japanese but I do hear Kurosawa was a huge ...

... It also should be noted that it was my fault we got on the 'wrong' train in the first place. Tom just wrote down the directions incorrectly. In FACT it would take us about 4 hours to actually get to Kanazawa.<br><br>So, instead we opted for Kamakura, a tiny little tourist town with a large temple complex located in a valley. There also seemed to be a religious festival on at the time in which people threw white arrows in a a bonfire and prayed for prosperity.<br><br>The ...

... Ryokan on the streets of Nagoya, we were greeted with a hearty and high pitched 'konichiwa' by a little Japanese woman with shopping bags in either hand. Not wanting to be rude, of course, we greeted her back before she attempted to help give us directions to our hotel. From there on in, all we could do was watch in horror as the situation escalated uncontrollably to Monty Python-esque proportions as she called upon a group of teenage school kids, who called upon ...

... ferry/cable car pass for 2000yen - I plan on going on the cable car in Miyajima tomorrow and that alone is 1800yen so it is a good buy. You can get them from the conductors on the trams. The A-Bomb dome is a building which was destroyed on the day of the bomb. It's been preserved almost exactly as it was on August 2nd, 1945 - apart from the obvious work to keep the remains standing. It certainly gives you a good impression of just how ...

... it was atomic bomb, was on display, it was exposed through it's lead protection. "Miyajima Island" is off Hiroshima, it is famous for it's floating Torii. Well it was low tide when we arrived, so it wasn't quite floating so we decided to kill some time and go up the mountain, the easy way, on the rope way. The views at the top over the ocean were awesome. We shared them with the monkeys that call the island home. By the time we came down ...

... for five seconds to let me fall asleep. It was shocking how sloppy of a snorer this man was. Every bump and turn would elicit an extended, stuttery, snorty sound from his throat and nasal cavity. I kept turning to him to say "shhhh" and "for the love of God please be quite" but he didn't flinch. I even rustled papers two inches from his ear and would turn to him and cough in his face as loudly as possible, but nothing would work. At the end, all we could do was sit back ...