Today we leave our hotel in Hiroshima, which has been our home for the last 7 days, and say hello again to Tokyo. We are making our way back home. Tomorrow we catch our flight back to the states. Today was spent mostly on trains traveling from Hiroshima to Tokyo. After we got off the train and we were trying to find our hotel we ended up on a little street just one street over from our hotel. It looks a little beaten up and a little sketchy but it had a ton of little restaurants. We ended up finding an indian restaurant. We made note and decided that that is where we wanted to eat dinner tonight. We found our hotel and then we were off on another train headed for another shrine. We traveled to Meiji Shrine. It was loaded with tourist but we were able to find a path that wasn’t so crowded and had these really big trees along the whole path. It was a lot more peaceful than walking the more crowded path.

Our friend Yuma told us to really get a feel of how Tokyo is we should go to a main street that the young kids like to hang out. The name is Takeshita. We got there and the street was packed! So many people. We went down and looked at some shops. It’s interesting because some of the kids go there and dress up. There were some different outfits there for sure. Once we were done on that street we headed back towards our hotel and found that Indian restaurant. I thought it was fitting that since we started our adventure in Salt Lake City with Indian food that we should end it too with Indian food. This little restaurant was really good. The curries we had were super yummy. They’re not very spicy because the Japanese locals don’t care for too much spice. I watched as the couple next to us took a bite and started sweating. It worried me until I took a bite of ours and it wasn’t spicy at all.

Not sure I’ll get to blog tomorrow since we will be traveling for so long. This has been a wonderful adventure for both Corey and I. We have enjoyed the Japanese culture here. We have made many amazing memories. Despite enjoying our vacation we are ready to get home. We miss our kids and Corey especially misses his pillow.

Today we traveled first to Onomichi where we rode a cable car to the top of a mountain to an overlook where you can see the whole city. It was really neat to see from way up there. After riding the cable car down we walked around a bit and stopped and had Onomichi Ramen for lunch. I guess it’s a special ramen that Corey said we had to have. We couldn’t spend a lot of time here because we had a train to catch for Kurashiki where we were meeting up with some friends. We boarded the bus to take us to the station only to find out that it was taking us to the wrong station and we were going the wrong way. We ended up missing our train and just taking the local train to where we needed to be. It was OK because we were still able to meet up with our friends.

We met up with Yuma again and I got to meet another friend of Corey’s from his mission, Akiko. Yuma showed us the old town of Kurashiki. The buildings and streets were so interesting. Most of them are white with black burnt wood as accents. It was beautiful. He took us to the shopping area and we went in and out of all these little shops. We ended up finding a Tonari No Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro) shop. That is one of our family’s favorite movies. Corey ended up getting some souvenirs from there. When we came out we had a couple of bags and Yuma and Akiko thought it was funny that out of all the things we had seen that day that was what we ended up with. I hadn’t gotten any souvenirs for myself and we saw a cool little shop that had this beautiful string art there. I thought it was really neat but Corey was afraid we couldn’t get it home in one piece. So we didn’t get it.

We went to dinner at a shabu shabu/sukiyaki all-you-can-eat place. Sukiyaki is one of the things I’ve been wanting to have since we got here. I’m so glad that we got to have some tonight. You cook the meat and veggies in front of yourself in a broth and then take it out and dip it in either a sauce or raw egg. Corey and I have had it at home but the store that sold our sukiyaki sauce stopped selling it so it’s been a while. It was all-you-can-eat for 2 hours. I got full pretty quickly. Yuma had a lot and I asked him if he ate this way all the time. He said yes. I then asked how he stayed healthy and skinny he said “yoga”, which is so funny because he’s the one who lead us in our yoga class the other night. It was a really fun day and not too strenuous. As we said goodbye to our friends at the train station Yuma and Akiko pulled out a present for me. They had bought me that string art that I liked so much. It was such a sweet gesture for them to do this for me. I’m going to be extra careful with it so I can get it home. I’ll always treasure it.

Today we woke up tired and very sore from our hike yesterday. We decided to take it easy. We took the train to Nishi-Hiroshima. This is where Corey spent 7 months of his mission. We started to walk around but my feet hurt so much that I had to go back to the station and sit and wait for Corey to be done. He went a couple of miles and saw some of his old haunts from his mission. The rest of the day we have spent trying to rest up. We have lots to do tomorrow.

We woke up bright and early so we could get an early start to Miyajima. We rode a ferry over to the island. Miyajima has the famous floating Torii. The shrine there is called Itsukushima. We wanted to get there early one to beat the crowds and two because we wanted to hike to the top of Mt. Misen. There are three routes to the top. Our friend Yuma told us to take the farthest route because it is less traveled which means less tourist. So we did and we only saw a few other people on the hike. It was a pretty strenuous hike. I tell ya they really like their stairs here. There were so many stairs! The stairs, in my opinion, made the hike harder. It was more like boulder climbing. We hiked to the peak of Komagabayashi and ate lunch there. At that point we debated if we wanted to hike further and go to the top of Mt Misen which is the higher, more populated, peak. After lunch and resting for about a half hour we decided to hike up. After about another 1000 stairs (not an exaggeration) we made it to the top of Mt. Misen. Both peaks were beautiful but the Mt. Misen definitely had more people. On the way down I decided to count stairs from the gate and I stopped after getting over 1200 stairs. It was only about half way down too! I know we climbed a few thousand stairs today. By the time we came down our legs were jello. Since we booked it up to the top we still hadn’t seen all the things in the town of Miyajima so we walked around town and bought some souvenirs and went to the shines in town. By the time we rode the ferry and the train back to our hotel we were exhausted. It’s the next morning now and my legs are really sore. I guess all the walking and stair climbing we’ve done on this trip was preparing us for this one day. I would be happy if I didn’t see another stair the rest of the time we were here.

Today we took it easy. We walked to Hiroshima Castle and took our time wandering around the grounds and inside the castle. The castle had to be rebuilt after the A-bomb hit in WWII. They restored it in the late 1950s. It had a lot of interesting things in it. I noticed here in Japan they have certain areas you are allowed to take photos and certain areas that you are not allowed. I took my camera out to take a picture of a samurai sword but Corey reminded me we couldn’t take pictures in that particular area. It’s a little weird.

On our way back we stopped at a Japanese garden called Shukkeien. It was loaded with tourist but fun to walk around. I love all the pretty flowers that are in bloom and the intricate layout of the garden. I wish my garden looked like that. There is a pond in the middle of the garden and we were sitting on a bench and noticed what looked like turtles. Corey thought they were statues but then I saw one move. That’s when we noticed there were loads of them on the raft in the middle of the pond and the rock islands.

For dinner tonight we went to a yakiniku place. Yakiniku is where you have a hot grill in front of you and you grill meat right at your table. It was all you can eat but they put a time limit on you. You have 120 minutes to eat. It was plenty of time and we got so full. The meat was so good. You grill it and then stick it in a sauce. It was a little expensive but a really cool experience.

Today we said goodbye to Kyoto and hello to Hiroshima. We rode the shinkansen (bullet train) from Kyoto to Kobe and then switched trains and rode the shinkansen from Kobe to Hiroshima. All trains were about 20 minutes late because someone was walking along the tracks. By the time our train arrived at Hiroshima the weather changed and it started raining. Lucky for us our hotel is adjacent to the station. We only had a short walk and we were there.

Corey and I are both tired and really just wanted a break from site seeing. Since it’s raining it seems to be the perfect time for it. Once we got to the hotel we ate some pre-made bento lunches that we bought earlier. Mine was a chicken and rice, and Corey’s was a tonkatsu and rice. We ate and rested and walked around the station a little. We found a mister doughnuts and decided to try some. Unfortunately they didn’t last long enough for me to take a picture. They were yummy. Tomorrow we have a planned day trip to Fukuyama where we plan to meet up with some of Corey’s friends from his mission. It Should be fun.

Today we decided to take it easier on our feet. So we went to the top of Inari Taisha. It is a big shrine with a bunch of orange Torii that line the walk all the way to the top of the mountain. The hike was about 5km or 3.1 miles. We climbed a bazillion stairs and gained in 1000 ft in elevation. Ok so maybe we didn’t take it too easy on our feet. The shrine is a huge tourist attraction and there were a lot of people there. At one point as we were starting the hike I felt like we were a bunch of cattle being corralled through the orange gates. It was hard for me to not start saying “Moo” while hiking but I was a good girl and didn’t. I don’t know if I would have offended anyone if I had. Something about being in Kyoto I’ve noticed is there are a lot of tourist and every where you go you can hear a number of languages being spoken around you. It’s really a neat experience.

After the shrine we decided we wanted to get some lunch. We headed to the city center train station in Kyoto by train. Once there we found a little restaurant in the Kyoto station. I remember reading online before coming that many times the best places to eat are in the train stations. This one was definitely some of the best food I’ve had here. I had a tonkatsu meal and Corey had udon. We decided to give our feet a rest for a little while and head back to the hotel to do some laundry.

After our laundry was done we walked back to the train station and headed out for dinner. We had some little hickups today getting on and off trains. Mostly not getting off at the right stop. It’s not a problem since we have a train pass for two weeks but only minor delays throughout the day. We had some ramen for dinner. In total we have walked over 11 miles today. Tomorrow is a travel day we head to Hiroshima where we will stay for a week.

We woke up to a perfectly beautiful day. We headed out by bus to visit Chionin temple. The buildings on the temple site are so amazing. The architecture of ancient Japan is so different from anything you would see in the United States. While visiting the site we sat down to take a rest for a couple of minutes and eat a small snack. Later we realized Corey lost the coin purse we just bought the day before to put our coins in. We had to hike back to the place he left it. Unfortunately it wasn’t there. It only had between $5-$10 of Japanese coins in it but still a loss. I was worried that he had put his credit card in there and his bills but luckily it was just coins.

After spending most of the day at the temple site we walked to the old imperial palace. It was really neat to walk around and see the ancient palace.

We climbed so many stairs today and walked over 12 miles. By the time we were back at the hotel my feet were so tired and sore. Hopefully tomorrow has less walking to do.