My goodness

Presently in hiroshima. Spent the evening with 3 Aussies and another american at the japanese equivelent to a tapas bar. We got a bunch of small dishes and a lot of beer. I am totally blocking on the japanese term for that kind of place due to the two large bottles of Kirin that I consumed tonight. It is further proof that Japan is no more expensive than the west. We each put in 20 bucks or so, and we each had 2 big bottles of beer and shared about 10 dishes.

Anyhoo... Yesterday I left Tokyo and stopped over in Himeji to check out the castle there. First off, the bullet train, as I'm sure you would suspect, is quite nice and efficient. Have to say it provides a very pleasant ride. Secondly, I was suprised to see cherry blossoms. In Tokyo I saw hardly any, so I assumed I wouldn't see any south of it, since the general rule of thumb is the further south you go, the warmer the climate, and therefore earlier blossom season. Well I don't know if that was the case this year, but fortunately there were still lots of blossoms south of Tokyo, including around Himeji castle. Anther surprise for me was to see the interior of the castle to be wood. The reason that suprised me was the outside is all stone and whatnot, it hardly looks like it would have a wooden interior. The last suprise for me was it had 6 floors. Quite a climb to the top of the castle.

After visiting Himeji, I took another train to Hiroshima. I arrived at the hostel, checked in, and saw there were a total of 8 beds in the room I was staying in. It was completely empty and devoid of people. So was the "common room." I was pissed. Why? Because a big reason I decided to "slum" it and stay at hostels was to meet fellow travelers. It didn't seem like that was happening for me. I went totally solo in Tokyo (until the last night, when I met a dude from Singapore who drove me nuts) and it looked like it was going to be the same in Hiroshima. So I decided to go out for a bit.

When I came back, there were a couple people in the common room, so I figured I would get a beer and chill with them. Well I set a trend as far as the beer drinking goes. By the end of the night, a handful of others were drinking and the common room was quite packed. I ended up staying up until 12:30 chatting away, and today explored Miyajima with the aforementioned 3 aussies. We also went to a town called Iwakuni, which I had never heard of prior to last night. It had a rather unique bridge. Oh, and white snakes. That I didn't have any interest in seeing, so I didn't. The aussies did however. Their enthusiasm confirmed my decision.

Got back to Hiroshima in the evening. Receptionist told us of all you can drink, all you can eat place. We were obviously down with that. Alas, that place was closed due to remodeling. To fill that "void" we settled for the place mentioned above. It ended up being quite pleasant and enjoyable. I suppose I should elaborate and explain HOW it was, but uh, just trust me, it was.

So tomorrow I aim to actually check out Hiroshima itself. I have yet to see Peace Park and the A-bomb building. Tomorrow, inshallah. Going through the city via train and street cars, I find it to be quite pleasant. It is close to the sea and apparently 6 rivers run through the city. I look fwd to exploring it more.

There you go, a quick recap of the past couple days.