Corn Dogs and the Karate Bear

So this past week has been a bit busier for me. I hadn't really done a whole lot since my last blog until this past Saturday. I headed back into Hiroshima and spent nearly a week staying with my roommate from college, Eddie. He's just got a little place near the university he works at, but it was big enough for the two of us. To get there I had to traverse the Japanese railway and the Hiroshima bus system alone for the first time. I had been given instructions on what to do, but it was still a little nerve racking trying to switch trains and trying to tell which bus was the one I wanted. In the end though, I arrived safe and sound at Eddie's apartment.

From there we traveled to a town about 30 minutes away by train. An annual sake festival was being held in Saijyo and so Eddie, along with a couple of people he knew through his work and I all went together. It was a bit of a dreary day weather-wise, but it didn't rain much after the first half hour or so that we were there. When we arrived, we first had to try to figure out where to go. After a bit of wandering and asking, we finally figured out that we had to go to a designated area set up kind of like the food booths at the Oktoberfest, only instead of having different types of delicatessens, the booth gave out a couple of different types of sake from the various regions of Japan.

In order to be able to get anything to drink, you had to pay for a ticket to get in. Along with the ticket came a little, traditional sake cup. It looks a lot like a little tiny bowl that probably only hold about an ounce of liquid. From there you could get as much sake as you pleased. We tried one from the majority of the regions and I have to say that I don't think I have a very fine appreciation for it. Its not the worst tasting stuff out there, but there are plenty of better tasting things as well. I wouldn't be trading one of my beer for a sake anytime soon, I'll just put it that way. There were however, plenty of other people who apparently did really enjoy the sake and quite a few who seemed to have enjoyed just a little too much. It was fun though and they had some pretty good food to go along with everything else, so it was pretty enjoyable.

After our troop arrived back in Hiroshima, everyone wanted to go to karaoke. I'm sure you've all heard how much Japanese people love singing karaoke, so even though its not my favorite thing to do, it was still fun to go with some fun people. We were able to rent a small room so we could sing and whatnot all to ourselves, so that was nice. They even have deals set up that you can rent out the room for 12 hours, a little too much for me.

Well, the next day it turned out that the weather was back to what I've grown accustomed to while being here- 80 and sunny. It was a really nice day out, so Eddie and I headed over to the Peace Park to walk around a bit before trying to find some lunch. Here are some of the pictures I took while we walked through.

 The first atomic bomb was detonated over this site

Eddie and I spent about half our time in the park wandering around looking for a statue of a mother and her daughter. Why you ask? Well, we had found a Mexican restaurant online that claimed it was possibly the only one in Hiroshima and their directions were- "approximately two blocks south of the statue in the Peace Park of a mother and her daughter." Now, these direction didn't seem like they'd be much of a problem until we began walking through the park and noticed that at least one in every three statues seemed to be depicting a mother with child in some form or another. Eventually we decided to just head south and hoped we'd find it. After a little bit of guesswork, we actually ended up just across the street from it, but to out disappointment, it was not yet open. We grabbed a quick bite somewhere else and headed back to the apartment where we waited for Naho to arrive after she was done working.

That night the three of us went out to an "American Style" restaurant named Blue Moon. The place was decked out with street signs, model cars, neon signs for various types of beer and other memorabilia that reminded me mostly of a combo of a truck-stop dinner in an old movie and what I imagine a Vegas convenient store would look like. The servings were massive however, which is nice considering often times they are only about 75% the size, but 125% the cost of a similar American restaurant meal.

Eddie and his strange volcano/egg meal

The next day, the three of us went to the museum in Hiroshima that has articles of clothing and bits of building and pictures from the atomic bombing of the city. There were a lot of pretty gruesome things and I didn't really take any pictures, it didn't really feel like things you should try to take pictures of. It was pretty disturbing seeing the stuff that some people had kept from their family members that had died- things like teeth, finger nails and bits of hair really creeped me out. One of the saddest things was a rusted tricycle and army helmet that had been a toddlers. He had been quite a distance away when the bomb when off, but still close enough that he was killed while out riding on his trike. His father buried him in the backyard along with the tricycle and helmet before he was later moved to the family burial spot years later. His bike was donated to the museum.

After the museum we went to an import shop in downtown Hiroshima and got some cheese and noodles to attempt making macaroni and cheese. Eddie does not have an oven in his apartment so we were going to have to try to find a recipe that was entirely stove top. The harder thing was finding good cheese to use. Most of the cheese in Japan is the same style and fairly expensive. We tried with some cheddar and spiced Gouda, but it didn't turn out too well. I don't know if it was the recipe, the cheese or the setting, but something had a negative effect and we turned out a not too wonderful dish.

Before heading back and making dinner, Naho and I went to a book store near the station. She was heading back home because she had to work the next day and I was hoping to find something to do that didn't require sitting in front of a computer or television. The book store was on the tenth floor of a building overlooking the city. This was the view from one more floor up

I spent the majority of the next day catching up on sleep before meeting Eddie in his office on campus. He had a three hour break where students are supposed to come in and talk in English and what not, but after the first hour or so, not many showed up. Eventually Eddie had to go to class and I spent the rest of my day just relaxing and waiting for he and Naho to get back.

That night we ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut. I thought I had a picture of it, but it must be on Eddie's camera. I'll try to get it from him to show you, but a $30 plus dollar pizza in Japan has slices that are almost as long as my hand. Its about 2/3 the size of a 12 dollar pizza back home. It was probably pretty close in size to the $5 Little Caesar's pizza, but it was still pretty tasty. We spent the night playing good old Nintendo 64 games like Mario Kart and Mario Tennis.

The following day, Naho and I went to the Asa Zoo. Its about an hour away by bus and isn't quite as large as the Oregon Zoo, but it costs only about 5 bucks to get in and has several animals that the Oregon Zoo does not. A few of the many pictures we took are here

The best thing we saw at the zoo was the bear a few pictures up. You can see that he has a stick that he is apparently balancing in the picture. That's not all he did. Not only did he balance it, he swung it around like a full on karate master. I have a video that I'll try to post at the end of the blog.

Anyway, after the zoo we decided to grab a quick bite and since the cheapest and easiest thing anywhere in the world does indeed turn out to be McDonald's, that is exactly where we headed. The crazy thing about the Japanese McDonald's is that rather than a McChicken on the dollar menu, they have the McPork. It wasn't too bad, kind of like a teriyaki flavor, but again I wouldn't be trading my McChicken for the McPork anytime soon.

The next day Naho and I grabbed a little lunch from the 7-11 down the street and brought it to Eddie's office to eat with him before we headed back to Naho's home. The thing that I wanted to get was the "Big American Dog", also known as a corn dog. I was a little disappointed because the breading was far sweeter than ours are, but it was good nonetheless.

After our meal we headed back to Naho's. It was nice to think that I would be sleeping in a bed again after spending the past 5 nights on the floor of Eddie's apartment. It wasn't really all that bad though, the floor was covered with what I think are called sashimi mats. They're woven mats made out of some sort of material, but its softer than uncovered ground. In addition to the bed, I was kind of excited to let Naho's dad try the root beer we had gotten from the import shop. He had never had any but wanted to try so we got a can of Dad's Root Beer for him. He drank it and enjoyed it immensely, but Naho's mother did not like it at all.

To end the night, the four of us played a soccer game on the Wii. It was about 2 weeks ago that Naho's father first asked us to play- Naho and I vs he and his wife. After that first time when we won 3 games, they have spent time practicing when we are not around in order to be able to beat us. I guess it paid off last night when they won two and tied a third match.

Today I haven't done much, just trying to get some things in order around here and get back in the flow of things. Next weekend we are going to be going to Universal Studios Japan with some of Naho's extended family so that should be a pretty fun experience. If anything noteworthy happens between now and then, I'll try to put a post about it.

Sam

PS- It turns out I did actually have the pizza picture as well as a few others