[Western Honshu Spring Trip] Hiroshima - Day One

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Because I have three weeks off between school years, I decided to take a vacation completely by myself to see part of the country that I really wanted to get the chance to visit. I journeyed down to Hiroshima via shinkansen, a journey that still amazes me sometimes looking at how far I can go in just four hours after doing nothing but getting on a train. It's convenient, but very pricey, but it's worth it to not have to get on a plane to make that trip, I think. I set out pretty early and arrived in Hiroshima around 1pm, so I had the rest of the day to do some stuff around the city.

The first thing I did was get lost (of course), but this is where having a smart phone really comes in handy, as all I had to do was put my location into google maps and let myself be guided. The first thing I did was to visit Shukkeien Garden, because it's near Hiroshima Station and therefore was an easy ten minute walk (once I figured out where I was going). The garden was really beautiful and not too crowded, and I took the time to read the information on the route plaques.

After the atomic bomb was dropped, the garden was destroyed and many survivors went there, though most of them died within a day or so due to injuries and burns, and were buried on the grounds. Therefore, the garden has a very somber feel to it, though it's very beautiful and I think it's a nice thing to have something that beautiful that has come out of such a dark history. The walk through the garden was full of barely-blooming sakura, bamboo, lush greens, and various other flowers - and I took it slow so that I could really appreciate where I was and what had happened there (as I tried to do with all of Hiroshima).

I grabbed some tea out of a vending machine and set off, because I was hungry. I didn't know where to eat, but since I do know Japan, I figured I would go to a Cafe Gusto, an inexpensive and easy to eat alone restaurant chain, so I searched it in trusty google maps and realized that it was very close to where my hostel was. It was also not a bad walk (about 20 minutes) so I did that rather than try to use the streetcars (which I was a little nervous about trying - trains, I'm ace with, but these were outside my known parameters). I found Gusto with few real problems other than SHOULDN'T I BE HERE BY NOW?? and successfully ate dinner by myself for the first time in a restaurant - no, really! This is the one thing I avoid at all costs. Fortunately, I had my Kindle, so I kept myself occupied with reading.

I couldn't check into my hostel until a little later, so I made my way over to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and just loitered around the sides of the river. I didn't want to venture too far in, because I was saving the big emotional stuff for the next day, when I could go in prepared, so I just watched the water and people and read some more. Then I went back to my hostel and found that it was open.

I was staying in a ryokan (traditional Japanese-style inn) in a single room, not a shared one, and the owner met me inside and was this wonderful older Japanese woman. I apologized for being a little bit early in Japanese, and then we walked through my reservation quickly and she showed me to my room, after telling me (all of this was in Japanese) that I was very cute and she was surprised by how cute I was. (I'm not sure why this surprised her, lol, maybe because I was female and traveling alone?)

By the time we got to my room, she said (in Japanese), "You live in Japan, don't you?" and I laughed and explained yes, I live in Tokyo and blah blah and we had a really nice conversation. She was incredibly kind and warm and welcoming, and I instantly felt at ease and knew I'd picked a great place to stay. After I was in my room, she came up with hot tea and traditional Japanese sweets for me - how wonderful! I was so touched and pleased.

I was pretty tired, so I mainly just bummed around my room the rest of the night and decided to turn in early in hopes of mentally preparing myself for the next day of Big Sites.

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