Thursday, October 5, 2017 – Kobe, Hiroshima and Miyajima

We left a window open in our little garret and the breezes felt great all night.  We wake up, take turns going down the hall to the “ladies powder room” and get ready to meet our ten a.m. check-out time.  (There are directions for use of the magic toilet seat, so I finally experience the feeling of being gently washed before wiping!  And the seat is so warm!)

There is a different young lady personning the desk, and her English is really good, so we’re comfortable asking her for directions and help in interpreting Tae’s map to L’Avenue, her favorite French bakery in Kobe.

View from our window.

Couldn't stay in one of these!

It turns out that it is walking distance from here and the directions start at the JR station with which we are very familiar!  She also suggests that we might enjoy the temple that is in that direction, as well as an unusual Starbucks, and some old European houses.  She also points out the Shin-Kobe station, so we don’t have to take the subway back to catch the shinkansen.

We set off with confidence,  and beginning scanning the sidewalk restaurants for a breakfast place.  Ginger spots one that appeals to her and I concur!  We share an order of eight – well, I have no idea what they were, but they were deep-fat fried balls of batter filled with lots of palate pleasers!  There is something meaty and chewy in the middle of each one and Ginger finally takes one out before chewing it up.  It’s a little piece of baby octopus tentacle! The balls are topped with green onion, a bit of seaweed, and the world’s tiniest shrimp!  There are pitchers of ice water and glasses available for free.  When we’re done, we put our tray in the little window, in keeping with the theme that we’re twenty again.  It’s just like my university’s cafeteria!

This may be the name of the restaurant - or a drink!

So good!  But you have to poke a hole to let the steam out before you eat them!

 Onward, now, with our mission in mind –to find L’Avenue and the train station, and continue in what seems like the right direction.  We ask for directions a couple of times and each time we’re right where we need to be!  Once I cross the street to check out a vending machine and it so happens that there is a police officer standing there.  We have a time getting “traffic light” and when we do, there is much smiling!

There are signs to the Ikuta Shrine and we see the most precious little boy all dressed up in his ceremonial finery for a ritual – perhaps the one for three-year olds?  Lots of photo ops here, and tourists, mostly Japanese, taking photos.   

Onward to a store that sells beautiful boxes of meat!  They are next to a door with L’Avenue as part of its name, so we ask more directions and our goal is exactly where we thought it should be!

This must be the most beautiful bakery in the entire city!  And the names of the gastronomic glories are things like “Balzac”, “Pasteur”, and “Sacre Coeur .  They are as beautiful as fine jewelry, and as glittery!  It is so hard to make a selection (or two), especially since we will be carrying this little bag  around with us for another day!

dogs entrance!!?

We’ve got a pretty good idea where the JR shin-Kobe station is, so we set off and soon find a large map beside the sidewalk.  We’re going just the right way! We happen on a little shop with tea cups and such in the window and right inside is a fine example of a tea cup!  Ginger and I check out the others in the store, most of which are really expensive, and agree that her’s is the best – and it’s the cheapest!  And there’s a ten percent off sale!  The two shop ladies have a little Engish and we have a pleasant chat.  They know Florida equals Disney and Ginger teaches them that Atlanta is the home of Coke!

A most unusual Starbucks.  They have rescued this wonderful old house.

We even find the European houses that the hostel clerk has mentioned!  We’ll have to luck up the reason for them being here, but the English house features Sherlock Holmes, and you can dress up in his deerstalker cap!  And there is one called “Ben’s House”!!

We’ve been going up hill for a while and it is a most welcome change when we start downward!  (Have I mentioned that this backpack will be the end of my shoulders? And Ginger’s sciatic nerve is having one of it’s more active days.) We find the JR station and the ticket concierge, who tells us that the next two trains to Hiroshima are all sold out.  He can get us on the 2:23 train, though, but we will have to change seats in Yokahama.  That’s no big deal;  we’ll still be in the same car.

We’ve got about an hour to wait and we buy a sandwich to share and thoroughly enjoy sitting in the air conditioning.  When it’s about ten minutes to train time we take the escalator upstairs and our train is the second one due on this track.  Everything runs with such efficiency that there is no need to worry about your train coming early or late.

Here she is, the Sakura 559 (that name is a good omen!  It means cherry blossom and is the origin of Sakurako’s name!).  She’s right on time and the only confusing thing is that car number seven doesn’t stop at the opening for it, so we have to walk down just a little bit.  No problem.  Because there are reserved seats, there’s no pushing or cause for worry.  We settle in.  We couldn’t get seats together;  but we’re so glad to have seats!!  At the first stop, we each get up and move to our new seats, which are still not together;  but I suspect Ginger is taking a nap and I’m typing; both good uses of our time.  We’ve decided that we made the most of our time in Kobe and are ready for our next adventure.  We are becoming quite the intrepid travelers, considering that I have a three-word vocabulary and Ginger might have five!  We’ve even figured out how to copy whole passages on the phone and paste them into a notes page so we can get them without internet access!

The next stop is ours and we’ll have to figure out how to get to our next hostel.  It is right by the ferry, so it will be easy to get from there to Miyajima, which is an island and has the famous tori gate out in the water.  It is a World Heritage Site.  We’re hoping for sunset or sunrise  photos, or both???

I was right!  Ginger was napping but I wake her up in time to get off at Hiroshima and the directions to Back Packers Miyajima sound simple – head toward the ferry, turn right and follow the road along the water until it stops, look right and they are the white, three-story building.  They don’t mention that you can’t cross one of the intervening roads!  It’s a simple step, though, to go under the road and come up on the other side.  The ferry is right there, and so is the road.  As we approach the end, it doesn’t look promising;  but as we get closer, there it is!

We walk in and the kids are so welcoming and excited to see us and help us get settled in J.C. (Jean Christophe) shows us the rules video and explains about the wifi, the use of the rooftop, the code for the door, and the bar.  Looks like a really fun place!  We’re on the third floor and there are lockers so we can finally drop off our backpacks.  YAY!!!  We’re in an eight-person dorm, although we thought we had asked for a four-person one;  but there’s only one other person anyway, so it really doesn’t matter.

With those huge weights lifted from our shoulders, we go back downstairs and head for the ferry.  It’s part of the JR system, so we just show our passes and climb aboard for the ten minute trip to the island.  As we approach we can see the tori gate, so we won’t even need the map the kids at the hostel gave us.

There are tame deer on the island!  They are everywhere and at one point we watch one rip the bottom out of a man’s dinner bag! He’s not happy but his son gets what must be some great photos!  

The tori gate is a wonder to behold.  We spend quite a bit of time just gazing at it.  We arrive in the late afternoon and stay until well past dark.  It’s hard to leave the peace and serenity it engenders.  We’ll be back in the morning to explore the rest of the island and maybe get some different shots.  It’s pretty hard not to take just another tourist photo; but we’ll give it the old college try.  And if we don’t succeed, so what.  The experience is what counts.

Interesting color shift with my iPhone's camera!

We’re thinking we’ll have dinner on the island;  but they roll up the sidewalks at sundown, so we meander back to the ferry and look for something on the mainland.  This time we use the elevator to go down and back up on the other side of the street.  There are two Japanese ladies making the trip, too, and they seem to be looking for dinner, like us. We wind up following them into a place on the second floor and it’s just what we’re looking for.  We don’t fancy anything on the menu;  but Ginger gets across that we want two draft beers and two bowls of udon noodles with tempura.  Just what we needed!  So good!  And when we’re finished two small ceramic glasses of hot tea finish off our meal!

Yep, we ordered right off the menu!

 We walk back to our hostel, which takes all of five or ten minutes, and go upstairs to retrieve our goodies from L’Avenue, which we take up to the rooftop.  There is a gentleman up there from the UK and we have a wide-ranging conversation about Japan and children and the Peace Memorial, which he had just visited.  We savor our patisseries and it begins to drizzle, so we adjourn to the first floor where the action is getting started!  There are kids at the bar and scattered around the room, with a smattering of old farts like us.  We fix ourselves a cup of tea and figure out the wifi, then adjourn to our room to plug in our electronics and check on our mail.  We’re really quiet because our roommate is already asleep!  It’s not even ten yet!

Ginger calls it quits first;  but I’m determined to post today’s blog!  And here it is!  Tomorrow we’ll go back to the island, then check out of the hostel, visit the Peace Memorial, which our new friend found extremely moving, then head back to Nagoya.  We hope to get home in time to visit Andy’s school before Iori and Sakurako have to go to bed!