Hiroshima (広島市)

Okay, so we start with the elephant in the room. Today's train adventure is ... on board a Hello Kitty themed 500 series train. Compared to all the other things that keep on happening to our train trips, I'd say this one counts as a positive! Even if I do grimace slightly about the person next to me booking the window seat so that they could put the shade down and sleep. At least we got a window seat on the return trip? So we could watch ... the darkness go by? It actually also took me walking to the front of the train to recognize the train series, even though I got an N-sized (non-motorised) model version when I was very young that I liked. It is ... quite round, to the point that it feels like a plane on the inside.

Our pink train took us to Hiroshima today, where we got to try out some new transportation strategies. Buses and Trams! I know, it doesn't seem real. And trying to find a map with all of the various public transportation methods appears ... impossible? But fortunately the peace memorial is such a common destination that you basically just follow the signs, including the "and now sit in this bus for x stops" part.

For me, the temperature ended up being absolutely lovely today, so I parked myself in a park with a beautiful view of a ... castle? Weird castle but relaxing spot for watching the sunset. I did get worried for a bit that the "no rain" forecast may have changed its mind due to the amount of rumbling that I was hearing for a while, but it turns out it was just trams going over the next bridge.

What I did not expect to find though was ... Octoberfest? The image of tiny japanese people holding onto german beer sized mugs and standing around just ... looked so bizzare. I did try to see whether I could get a Pretzel or Bratwurst but ended up leaving empty handed. The Pretzel was a bit too steep to test at A$7 and the sausages were only available as platters of half a dozen. It also didn't help that most of the shops only translated their beer menus, the half I couldn't really care about. But maybe it's the secret ingredient to being able to munch down 6 sausages in a row?

And just like last time I was in Hiroshima, I managed to spot a wild cat! It was by itself this time, and didn't show any interest in Washinoko, but it was being just as difficult about being photographed in very poor lighting as the last time. Glad we're keeping traditions though.

Upon returning to Osaka, I still hadn't really eaten anything substantial, so even though it was shortly before midnight, I went on another hunt. Given the sheer number of people I had to crawl through to get anywhere, at past 11pm, it seemed like it would make sense for stuff to still be open. And indeed it still was. The place I eventually ended up settling on had a closing time of 5am. Should be long enough.

And finally, all my dreams from yesterdays Ramen all came true. It was a larger shop but it was obviously very pragmatically and streamline built. You get the base order at the door, and then get given a stall number and a vague direction down a narrow corridor to go. Upon arrival, you get another piece of paper where you fine tune your order. 15 seconds after sitting down the paper disappears and a curtain gets drawn over the 30cm gap in front of you, leaving you isolated in your little stall. And then another 60 seconds later (a far more reasonable amount of time to wait than the 5 seconds of the previous place) your order appears.

There are no pictures. I think the smell alone told me that I had found myself in the right place. The chopsticks did not splinter in my fingers like they did at the previous place. And then the Ramen just disappeared straight into me. In fact I had to remind myself strongly that just because you haven't eaten today doesn't mean you can eat all of the broth. The reason for which became apparent about 15 minutes after I left the shop grinning like an idiot when my stomach had its usual "you just dumped a huge Ramen into the void that was the previous state of your tummy". This hiccup occurred at a point where I suddenly had wished that I had not walked quite so far in the completely wrong direction to get home. But fortunately it appears that I stopped at the prefect point as I was right as rain by the time I got home.