We were super-late picking up Maia's friend, Sam from Hiroshima Station, but I hope I made it up to him by using my preternatural sense of direction to find a delicious Indian restaurant. Before leaving the station I had asked Sam to procure a map of the city and I spent a few minutes perusing it in search of our campsite for the night. Yup, we were pitching a tent in the park, a.k.a. the I'm-A-Raging-Cheapskate-Because-This-Country-Already-Bilks-Me-Out-Of-A-Fucking-Mint style of traveling. Hijiyama Park was the park we ended up at and it was both perfectly central in the city while being off the beaten path of your average citizen, if that makes any sense. I don't know why, but hardly a soul went there, morning, noon or night. The place was fairly interesting, really, as it contained not only your requisite open spaces and greenery (like a forest in spots), but also the sprawling Museum of Contemporary Art, a manga (comics) library and the, uh, Hiroshima Center for Radiation Studies. Why a place that deals with powerful radioisotopes and their effects on life was located here, in the largest park in the city, and not on some university campus or perhaps ANY DAMN PLACE BUT NEAR A MILLION PEOPLE is beyond me. The sliver of the park we chose was perfect for another reason as well: it was already inhabited by two homeless men, their cats and three itinerant cyclists. It was like a little Japanese Hooverville.
Admittedly, sleeping on the park ground isn't the most comfortable lodging choice and we woke up in various states of delirium. The biggest problem was a nearby tunnel and the sounds of rampaging bosozoku (epically annoying bikers on weak-sauce bikes with cut exhaust pipes who all dress idiotically like a new wave Skoal bandit) riding by at all hours. You know, this worked so much better last year when I was either A) sleeping on the conforming sands of a beach, basking in the natural sound of breaking waves or B) drunk as a skunk. There are few times in life I've wanted—no, needed—a coffee more than that hour, and I think Maia and Sam were with me.
The Starbucks behind Hiroshima's downtown Parco has the best people watching in Japan the three of us had ever seen. We occupied a second-floor corner window table and looked down upon the masses, judging them like three Greek gods. OK, maybe not that harsh, but damn did they wear some funny shirts, “Come To My Island” taking the prize for the day (I still regret not mugging that dude for his shirt). From coffee our plan was to leave the city and head for the less crowded pastures of Kure and, hopefully along the way, find a bath.
Now, if there's one thing I will never take for granted ever again in Kyûshû it's the abundance of honest to goodness hot springs at reasonable prices. This is not the case in other parts of Japan. We saw three billboards for onsens on our way to Kure and the first two turned out to be so expensive I vomited a little bit in my mouth when I read their sandwich boards. The third finally turned out to be serviceable, but quality-wise it was junk even compared to the worst springs here. The water claimed to be tennensui (natural spring water), but then why was it chlorinated? Upon entering the bath Maia and I got the same reaction from the locals on both sides of the male/female divider, namely that all talk juddered to a halt and then resumed with only we foreigners as the conversational topics. This happened in a bar the night before—which is another story altogether—and it was grating on my nerves enough I could just rip some heads off without even caring. I am so very tired of it, Japan. So very tired.
Pics of the mystery islands on the inland sea and their only functional restaurant, which is really quite good. I sure wish I could remember what these islands were called. I can't even find anything about them online.
Our destination in Kure this day was a string of four islands jutting out into the inland sea and connected by newly built bridges. Previously each island was only reachable by ferry, so this was sort of unexplored territory even for the locals. The half-kilometer first bridge was ridiculously expensive (800 yen), but a restaurant located just past it on the first island made up for it. Nice folks, good food, cheap and the Rasta décor said to me that the owners were definitely purveyors of some of the finer herbs in life despite what the man says about that around these parts. These islands are a really nice place to take a day trip to and I envy the people of Hiroshima and Kure—the views towards Shikoku and the blue nothingness are stunning. We had a nice laugh at a supposed “waterfall” that took some slick gravel rally driving on my part to reach, except it turns out this sacred falls is actually a trickle coming out of a hose. Probably the biggest deal on the archipelago is the Citizens' Beach facility overlooking the sea on the south shore. They had a pristine beach, tennis courts, a gymnasium, cottages to rent out, some beekeeping somethingorother and even an astronomical observatory. The beach had a free camping spot which we were about to set up at...until we went looking for dinner. Damn these islands, there isn't a morsel of food to be had after 5PM. The best we mustered was a 6-pack of beer and some Ritz crackers. So we headed back to Kure, bit the bullet and got couple hotel rooms, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it started to fiercely rain just as we pulled in. The rest of the night was spent getting intoxicated and watching some very good Japanese game show TV.
The next day we headed back towards Hiroshima and visited the city art museum and gardens before bidding Sam adieu at the station. Maia and I drifted towards the downtown shopping area and came across some very spiffy riverside cafes with impressively tasty menus. Comparing Hiroshima's city center to Oita's, I have to say that it's certainly more pretty and bustling, but man is it boring. Maybe we just didn't have the knack being non-locals and all, but we ended up just studying Japanese at Starbucks—not exactly the thing you think you're going to do on what's supposed to be a vacation. We once again stumbled upon another Indian restaurant, this one being quantum leaps more delicious than the one before and perhaps the second tastiest in Japan that we've found yet. A movie poster for Slumdog Millionaire hanging in the eatery indicated it was playing at a nearby movie theater in a few hours and having been foiled before already in seeing it we thought we were about ready. Alas, the poster was wrong, wrong, wrong—the run had ended days before we arrived. This city really knows how to leave a bad taste in your mouth.
If the city were just rows upon rows of these riverside cafes I'd never leave.
We slept in the park again—with earplugs this time—and did pretty much the same morning routine as Tuesday. By Thursday now Golden Week was officially over and the city was much quieter for it as everyone shuffled off to their horrible jobs. People watching at Starbucks was more or less a bust as the crowd had been reduced to a trickle, but there were still enough office ladies tardy to work and doing their ridiculous little half-walk/half-run sort of trot in heels to make it a good time. Filled with coffee and mirth it was time to hit the road back home with a little stopover at Miyajima, one of Japan's major cultural heritage sites.
--Matt
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