Day 11 Saturday June 5

We checked out, ditching our bags with the hotel, grabbed a Beard Papa cream puff




and a bento box each and hopped the train to Hiroshima. The first train only had seats left in the smoking car, and as it was an hour and a half ride, we decided against arriving with permanent headaches. So we didn’t get there til 1:30, in the heat of the day.

We walked Shukkien Garden first--

it was full of turtles!



--then took the street car to Peace Memorial Park and checked out the museum. Hiroshima was much like you’d expect. A little patch of green surrounded by ugly concrete boxes that make up the city, the memorial was sad and moving and less political than I’d expected. The English translations of history seemed pretty accurate, from what I could remember. Part of the motto of the memorial is “transcending hatred,” which I think pretty much says it all. The only place I noticed any contention was in the guestbook. Surrounded by messages of peace and love and sorrow, an Australian girl had signed, “How awful that anyone would wrongly attack such a beautiful country”, and below her entry a less-ignorant Brit had written a rather acerbic response.





We took the streetcar back and wondered if there was some sort of festival going on: the cars, and the streets, were full of girls in kimonos and boys in traditional dress robes. D surreptitiously snapped photos of them, holding his camera under his arm. It was another hour and a half back on the shinkansen. We were both grateful for the rest. With so much walking and having worn a pair of bad sandals a few days before, I was suffering from shin splints.

Back in Osaka, we searched for an hour for a place to store our luggage, since D’s huge camera bag wouldn’t fit in any of the station lockers or even the department store ones. We returned to the hotel of the day before almost desperate—considering paying $30 for a capsule hotel room simply to store the bag—but the Chisun was all too happy to keep them til tomorrow. So, lightly, clutching just our backpacks, we set off along the river.

On a Saturday night, the streets were packed, with cosplayers in black or garyu with long light brown curls and lacy Bo Peep dresses. We found the ramen place Soli had recommended without too much trouble: ichiramen, or number 1 ramen. We waited in a roped line for 20 minutes before being ushered inside, where we waited in chairs for another few minutes, ordered our food from a vending machine on the wall, took our dinner tickets and were placed in a row of individual cubicles. You could lean around the partitions to chat, but could see nothing in front but a wooden screen, with a hole at table level for hands to pass bowls through. I pushed my little buzzer to call the waiter and he appeared behind my screen, rattled off some words in Japanese, waited silently for a moment, then leaned down and peered sideways through the hole at me, grinning helplessly and asking “Nan des ka?” (What is it?)
“Ah—English menu!” he said reassuringly, and popped off, reappearing quickly with little laminated guides for both me and Darryl. We compared the Eego menu to the Japanese form, lining up the things we wanted and circling the kanji: level of spice (I selected Medium and boy, was I sorry), amount of green onions (regular), amount of garlic (1/2 clove), tenderness of noodles (I chose normal/firm), richness of soup (regular). When we were finished we rang our buzzer and pushed our tickets and form through the hole, and in a few minutes, he pushed a bowl of ramen back at us.



I had accidentally ordered a ticket from the vending machine of something that had looked like a glass of water, which turned out to be a little bowl of a tangy sort of soy sauce. I dumped the whole bowl into my broth and it was amazing. Luckily there was a tap at each cubicle, with free flowing water. Behind us, along the wall, boxes of tissues were within easy reach. Many other patrons were wiping sweaty foreheads and dabbing runny noses as well.



We visited Don Quixote next, a six-story shop selling costumes, rude t-shirts, and all sorts of toys. Then we headed to our love hotel for the night, Rose Lips. Love hotels are found in most of Japan’s big cities. They are discreet places for couples to go, not only for illicit or secret trysts, but also for regular couples who may not have much chance otherwise—the walls of a Japanese apartment are thin. Love hotels often have themed rooms, for playing out your fantasies—some rooms are designed to look like a train station, or the inside of an airplane, or a bar. Some are Wild West themed, some provide Sumo wrestling costumes. I was hoping for a Hello Kitty theme for ours.





It was only 9 p.m., but there were only 3 rooms still available and sadly, no Hello Kitty. We stood in the lobby, which was softly carpeted, and finally chose the nicest of the remaining rooms from the light-up panel in front of us, in a bit of a hurry, as two more couples had walked in the door. When we got up to the fifth floor, we were delighted by what we had—an enormous room, the size of a luxury Western hotel room. Gigantic roses were painted on the walls and looming over the dark scarlet bed. We had a red leather couch, a big screen TV, a huge bathroom with a steam machine and a spa bath and a separate toilet. We could use the free bath oils, bath salts, soaps, hairdryer, perfumes, lotions for him and her, razors, bathrobes, slippers, hair and toothbrushes, or hair gel. For a fee, we could access a special cupboard containing, umm, toys. Adult movies were free, albeit disturbing in a special Asian way, and you could also call for room service: noodles, hot dogs, and ice cream sundaes were available at all hours.

Worn out as per usual, we didn’t take full advantage of anything except the spa, which lit up with bright flashing strobe lights. The 11 a.m. checkout service was a positive luxury and the night had only cost as much as our first and smallest hotel in Tokyo.