Headed down to Hiroshima for golden week. Only an hour flight from Tokyo, but then another hour by bus to the downtown train station. Saw my first real life 787 although not what we flew.
Of course we had Okonomiyaki (お好み焼き）since this is the famous food of Hiroshima, which in this case usually contains noodles, but its really more like yakisoba in Utsunomiya.
Hiroshima has the tragic history of the first A-bomb, but has now been restored to a very beautiful city. Here was our first view of the A-bomb dome and the memorial park, had to walk around to work off all the Okonomiyaki.
The next day we rode bicycles from Onomichi (尾道）to a few islands that are adjoined by bridges. If anyone comes across this blog for fun or looking for the bicycle tour, use the ferry to cross over the start of the recommended bike route, the first bridge is a little bit dangerous and I dont think it is meant to be used by bicycles.
Bicycles can be rented from the parking structure next to the green hotel across from the train station, there are a variety of bikes, mountain bikes, the little ones you see in the picture and momma cherry's. We ended up biking about 30 kilometers on these little bikes. There are a lot of nice scenic places to stop and this gelato shop.
Which was delicious. The course is a little more than 70km one way but there are a few places were boats will take passengers and bicycles back to Onomichi station.
After all the bicycle riding we needed more Okonomiyaki, this time topped with Oysters, another specialty of Hiroshima.
The next day we spent most of the morning in the memorial mesuem,
but then headed to Miyajima (宮島). Unfortunately the main gate is under construction, as you can see in the first picture above, but the shrine and the island itself is very beautiful place, we'll just have to make another trip to see the gate without scaffolding.
