Japan Tripping - Hiroshima

Next up - Hiroshima for 3 nights.
I don't know if I've mentioned that this is my 2nd trip to Japan. On my last trip two years ago I went to Tokyo, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto and Hiroshima - so basically all the places I'm visiting again this time. Last time we only had 1 day in each city but Tokyo, so I really wanted to get to know them all better.
On my last visit to Hiroshima we just went to the Peace Memorial Museum + park and I only got to see the city as the one which was bombed. This time around I wanted to see it as something else.



We went to Miyajima and the Itsukushima Shrine located at the island. It took 1 hour to get there. I was very positive at the beginning of our trip - the nature was mind-blowingly beautiful etc. - but the excitement quickly faded.




We had dropped down on the one place more touristy than Kyoto. Shops with horrible souveniers were all over the place and prices on everything was compleately bogus. The only funny thing was the special signature cake for the area. Filled with either chocolate, beans or all sorts of different creams. And you could see them in the making - also very touristy, but whatever.
The shrine is famous for its gigantic gate and that wasn't as gigantic as I'd thought. Still very neat, though.



We went back to the city and went to se park and Peace Museum. I'd seen it before and it made a huge impression on me last time, so there wasn't a lot I couldn't remember. But it was still nice to see again.



We stayed at a minshuku, a small ryokan, which was a cool experience. The hosts really took us in and cared for us those days we spent there. It was very different than all the other housings we had stayed at. Our hostess, Kazuko-san, was very kind and took us to a caligraphy class.



My mom wasn't very good, I was all right and my dad compleately ruled. He's always good with that kind of stuff even the first time around - that's what you get from having a graphic designer as a dad.
The first one's my dad's, the secong my mom's and the last one mine.



Before jumping on a shinkansen back to Tokyo we went to the Mazda Museum. Zoom zoom! It was very fun! We got to see a part of the assembly line and got a whole lot of information about the making of a car and Mazda as a company. They own their own port in Hiroshima, jesus!



The "future" part of the museum was A-W-E-S-O-M-E! So many fierce cars. This one was very batmobile-ish. UMF, if I could get a car like this, ahha.



Funky homemade figurines. They're made of scrap metal, and as far as I know they're from the movies "Alien"?? Haven't seen those..

<3**