Ahoy!

Day 11 - 15/10/09 - Hiroshima (Tokyo)

Today we went for a walk down the Promenade of Peace to Hijiyama Park. We then took the Sky Walk Escalator which ended up at a large shopping centre. Jess fell in love with a giant Elmo, and he wanted to come meet everyone back in Aus, but he was too big and they might have made us pay for extra tickets for him to go everywhere with us!

After having a quick look around the shops, Rhys & Erica headed back to the hotel as Erica was unwell, and we went for a bit of shopping closer to our hotel. After a few hours of wandering through countless multi-story shops, we decided it was time to get Rhys & Erica and find some dinner.

We had read that we needed to try Okonomiyaki as it is a Hiroshima dish and is a must do if you are in Hiroshima. We walked around for quite a while (as nobody grabbed any of our maps to bring) before finally locating a restaurant that served Okonomiyaki.

Basically, it is a thin crepe-like pancake topped with cabbage, sauce, pork, udon noodles, and egg and various other ingredients, and cooked on a grill right in front of you. It was well worth the walking around aimlessly to find it - it was delicious!

Day 12 - 16/10/09 - Hiroshima (Japan) & Ferry (Japan-China)

Our earliest morning so far - up at 5:45 to get our stuff together and walk to the train station before 7:15 for our bullet train to Kobe. Once at Kobe, we needed to catch another train to the Port to check in for our ferry. During check in, they checked our temperatures (to ensure we didn't have swine flu) and then advised us we needed to pay more money to board. We didn't have enough between us and they would only accept cash and not card, so the boys had to catch a train back to Kobe, find an ATM and get back all within 30 mins.

The boys had been gone for about 15 mins when a guy came up to us and advised they made a mistake and we had already paid this extra money when we booked our tickets, so we called the boys and they began the journey back.

We were finally able to go through customs - which involved Scotty having to explain what all our first aid kit was for by pointing to his stomach, throat, etc. Once on board, we dropped our bags in our rooms and went out on deck to say goodbye to Japan.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and playing cards. Oh, and the afternoon also included a safety drill which had us putting on our life jackets and assembling on deck.

Take care - Jess & Scotty