I got up this morning feeling great. My muscles were not sore at all, and I rolled out of bed and walked to the bathroom. Ouch! Blister alert! I had to spend some time this morning with bandages, and then I was able to walk to the train station. It hurt a lot at first, but after a few minutes, things loosened up and I felt much better.

Today was “Open High School” day, as well as tomorrow. This is the time for junior high students to audit our school, taking selected courses, trying out sports clubs, meeting teachers and students, and basically testing things out. All my regular classes were shorter to add another class period at the end of the day for the potential students.

After my regular classes were over, I walked over to the gym to watch the welcome ceremony. It was quite good, and everyone was on their best behavior. The jazz band played a number, which really impressed me. They were great! The dance club performed a pretty cool dance – it was choreographed very well.

Afterwards, I met Tsutsumi sensei and Yamamoto sensei in my classroom, and we taught a group of kids how to order hamburgers in America. It was fun to explain the idea of a “quarter pounder” to a bunch of Japanese teenagers. They have McDonald’s here, but the menu is different, and since they don’t use pounds here, the concept of a quarter pounder is pretty alien. But I suppose that’s why I’m here, being the resident alien.

One of the kids was pretty enthusiastic – I guess junior high school students in my prefecture only see an ALT about once a month. He talked to me about his IQ (107), what he was doing this weekend, and his school in a strange mix of English and Japanese. Once he figured out that I understood a little Japanese, he invited me to a bar after school. I didn’t fully understand, but Mr. Kimura thought that perhaps his parents owned the place and he was trying to drum up business. I politely declined citing the weather and my aching feet – the whole thing kind of caught me off guard.

After class I went back to my desk to see a giant package from my parents waiting for me. Several teachers were hovering around, hoping I would break it open, but acting on advice from my folks, I didn’t open it at school.

Unfortunately, I had to figure out a way to get the 20 pound (!) package home on my damaged feet in the pouring rain. Luckily, Mr. Kimura saw my dilemma and gave me a ride home. There I opened the package to find lots of warm clothes, salami, Vella’s cheese, seasoning packets, and hot sauce. Wow. It’s like Christmas when a package shows up.

Tonight I’m going to rest my feet by watching a movie curled up on my couch. With the heavy rain outside, it should be a nice relaxing evening.

Wow, what a hike. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to walk tomorrow.

I got my sleepy body to Kakogawa, meeting Mr. Hayashi at the station at 6:30 in the morning. He drove me to the starting point of the big hike, and I walked into a huge crowd of people. There were about a thousand people doing the 40k hike, and everyone was doing exercises led by people in animal costumes on a stage. Talk about a weird scene.

We left in small groups at 7 a.m., and my group was one of the last to go. The first leg went just fine, but it was really crowded, and with my long strides I often found myself behind slower people with nowhere to go. After a mile or so, things opened up a bit. The sky opened up and we had to walk through rain for almost an hour. The jacket that I had invested in before coming to Japan did a great job of keeping me dry. It was a lifesaver.

After about two hours, I felt a twinge at the back of one of my feet, every time I stepped down. It turned out that this was the start of a couple of blisters that would come back to haunt me later.

Every so often there were stops, called “comfort stations”, where you could get tea, food, and other goodies. Since it was raining for the first one, I made just a brief stop. I made a longer stop at the next one, and by then, I was starting to feel pain in both heels of my shoes. I took off my boots, and sure enough, there were blisters starting to form. Something I hadn’t noticed before in my boots, there is a small gap just behind the heel, and apparently it was rubbing on my feet.

I decided to tuck my sock into the gap to try to fill it, and walk on. I walked for another 10-15 kilometers before it became painful again.

Meanwhile, there were plenty of interesting things happening. Some people walked with me and practiced their English. At every intersection, there were two people to make sure that cars didn’t come by and run us over. These people were at even tiny intersections. I took a picture of a group of guys just standing around – the intersection looked like a car comes by maybe every week.

Most of the people I was walking with had been hiking the previous day, and they were in great shape. I passed a lot of people, but every now and then, somebody would pass me, which was pretty impressive. It was interesting that as soon as we hit a hill, I would zoom by everyone – the flat walkers had real troubles on hills.

The course went through a Shinto shrine on a mountainside – kind of a treat and a good place to relax and rest your feet. We went by a sports coliseum that I didn’t know existed, and an opera house that was tucked into the hills.

At one of the “comfort stations” I bought a hot dog on a stick, and the lady who was helping me asked me to marry her. I don’t think she was joking, so I just pretended that I didn’t understand. I’ve never been proposed to on a hike before.

Near the three quarter mark of the trip there were scarecrow type things on the side of the road. I couldn’t read the signs next to them, but there were whole families of scarecrows to watch you walk by. It was kind of creepy, especially if you don’t know the idea behind them.

On the last leg of the trip, my feet were killing me. I won’t go into details, but it was painful and messy. I walked across the finish line at 3 p.m., an eight hour hike. I yanked off my shoes and did some quick first aid, and then just relaxed for a while. Mr. Hayashi said that he would meet me at 4:30, so I had an hour and half to kill. I struck up a conversation with some locals, and practiced my Japanese for a while.

Finally, I saw Mr. Hayashi around 4:00 p.m. Miss Kageyama was driving, and together they took me home to take a shower and clean up a bit. They wanted to take me out for a beer to celebrate my survival. They sat out in the car while I showered and then I went out and jumped in the car. We went to Chinese food, and I finally had some great Chinese food in Japan. The cost wasn’t too bad, but we did have to sit Japanese style on tatami mats, and my legs were screaming.

After dinner, they dropped me off at my apartment, and I was able to clean up my wounds a bit more. Now I’m hoping to get to bed early, but I have the bad feeling that I’m going to have a painful walk to school and back tomorrow.

Tonight Antoine and I met in Kobe, and we went to Like, Like to have a few beers and compare notes on our last month. We’ve been out of touch for a little while, and we had a good time catching up. The bartenders at Like, Like were fun as usual, and we had a quick dinner and a couple of beers. I knew that I was hiking tomorrow, so I figured it would be good to break it up early.

On the way to the station we decided to explore Kobe Harborland, kind of a Pier 39 type thing that is frequented by couples, mostly. It has a boardwalk, a pier, and lots of attractions along the way, including a ferris wheel. We spent almost an hour exploring the area, but it was huge. There was a Brazilian restaurant there which looked interesting. There were mechanical animals to ride around. We dropped 200 yen into one, and Antoine got a 20 second ride. What a rip-off!

There was a boat docked there that is used for harbor cruises. Antoine and I boarded the ship without persmission and walked around a bit – it was pretty nice. They had a Christmas tree on the pier, and it changed colors from pink to blue and back. We also managed to get into a picture with some poor lady. Her husband lined her up for a shot, and then Antoine and I walked up and got on either side of her with our “peace signs” out. She was shocked/surprised/pleased at all once. I wish I could see the picture.

After about an hour we walked back to the train station. Underneath the station, a large group of young people were practicing breakdancing, and we watched that for a little while. Very interesting. There was even a family – mom, dad and kid breakdancing.

I finally got home around eleven o’clock, and I’m hoping to get some rest for my big hike tomorrow.

This morning I was scheduled to be a judge at a speech contest being held at a local school – Harima Minami high school. I walked over in the morning, but upon arriving, I realized that I had no idea where to go or who to talk to. Fortunately, one of their students flagged me down and just started walking me towards a building.

The contest was sponsored by the Lion’s Club (I guess they are big here in Japan, too) and it was very interesting to observe. The judging panel was composed of three native speakers of English, and three Japanese English teachers. The teachers were very nice, and a little shy. They had no trouble communicating with us, and everything went very smoothly.

Ten students presented speeches, and overall, they did a good job. After each one we would solemnly write down their scores, and hand them in. There were about fifty people attending, and I think everyone was very nervous. The students talked about issues that were important to them, and they spoke for about five minutes each. Some of the students had a hard time, and one broke down into tears and totally wiped out. It was hard as a judge to just sit there and try to appear impartial.

Afterwards, we awarded three prizes, and the students were treated to a closing ceremony and some fanfare. I tried to walk around and thank each of the students, but they ran like rabbits when the event was over. I got to talk to some ALTs that came to support their own students, and it was nice to catch up with them. I talked about the movie Whale Rider with a teacher from New Zealand, I thought it would be interesting to get their take on the movie.

Finally, we got paid and we got out of there. Mr. Hayashi was there to support our students (who didn’t win – ugh). We went out to Kakogawa and picked up Miss Kageyama, and then went for lunch at a restaurant remarkably similar to Benihana in the U.S.

No fancy knife tricks here, just right down to the business of cooking. Mr. Hayashi cynically attributed the lack of flashing knives to the high cost of health care in Japan. We ate “hamburgers” which is just a fried hamburger patty with sauce, and then had some onions, carrots, and potatoes that had been fried up. The sauce was excellent, and overall, it was a very good meal. They had steaks on the menu, but the top steak goes for 10,000 yen – about a hundred dollars. Mr. Hayashi said that it tasted like a $10 steak – not worth even trying. I have found that here in Japan, if it is expensive, it is perceived as good, no matter what the flavor. I’ve had the same experience with wine in Japan – is that wine good? Is it expensive? If it is expensive, it must be good.

I’m back home now and getting ready to watch Survivor. Tonight I might meet Antoine in Kobe at our old favorite, Like like.

Last night I was down at the yakitori, hanging out with some of the guys and having a good time. I tried some new dishes, including an egg omelet type thing that was excellent. It is painstakingly cooked so that the final omelet is made of paper-thin layers of egg, and wrapped and presented to you like a gift.

So I’m talking with some of the guys, and we’re passing around my English-Japanese dictionary trying to figure out different words. The guys are bummed out because some of the more risque Japanese terms are missing, and sometimes after a few drinks they feel it necessary to communicate these concepts to me.

A couple of girls came in and sat down in the back, right behind us. I had seen them there before – they are sisters or cousins of somebody’s wife. The beers started flowing, and I guess they got pretty drunk. It was about nine thirty, so I decided to leave – and so I said goodbye to my gang, and then the girls called me over to the table.

I stood there and flirted with them for a while, and they were insistent that I come back next week – I think they want to cook me dinner or something. The master came by and he got invited, too. One of the great things about being a foreigner is that you can play stupid when somebody asks tough questions – and trust me, there were some tough questions.

The best part came when one of my buddies came by to check on me, and then he gave the table a full-on blast of Japanese. I think he explained more about me in twenty seconds – it would have taken me two hours.

As I left the place, everyone said goodbye, even people I didn’t know – another nice thing about being a foreigner in Japan.

Today was a mild day at work – no classes for me, just meetings and coaching students. I spent about half and hour with Hasegawa-san, our entry in tomorrow’s speech contest. I’m actually one of the judges, so I will have to be the model of impartiality tomorrow.

After school I went with Mr. Hayashi to Kakogawa City Hall to register for the big hike on Sunday. It’s a long one, around 25 miles, so it should be fun. The hike is actually two days long – I’m only participating during the second day. Mr. Hayashi says that over 100,000 people attend and march both days. I expect that the crowds will be smaller on the 40k trail. I even got a little tag that I wear to identify myself and get free goodies along the way.

Tonight I am running a little laundry. I was planning on running down to the yakitori with Melanie, but she called in sick. Now I’m deciding whether to go down there or to cook up something last minute here.

It’s been cooling off around here, and the blanket is turning into a great investment. According to my Yahoo! weather page, it was supposed to rain today, but no rain turned up, and I was carrying around an umbrella for naught.

I had only one class today, and it was during the last period. I just sat around all day doing lesson planning and then finally had the class at the end of the day. It is one of my favorite classes – the students are fearless and will try to pronounce any word you say… they don’t worry about embarrassing themselves like so many other students do.

Normally I have an ESS meeting today, but everyone was studying, so I had no attendance. Funny how everyone shows up when cupcakes are being made, but otherwise, it’s a ghost town! I talked to a few of my members, and they apologized profusely – they felt bad but they’ve got some serious studying to do.

I was walking through the teacher’s room, and one of the teachers started yelling at one of the students. The only problem was that I was standing in between them when it happened. The student didn’t know she was getting yelled at, and I thought that for some reason I was. Not knowing the language makes things interesting around here.

I made “gyuudon” tonight – beef over rice, with some stir fried sprouts on the side. The sprouts are dirt-cheap, only about 20 cents for a large bag, but they go bad fast – I need to cook them up within a few days of buying them. The gyuudon is just thin sliced beef over rice with some onions – it is very good with the right marinade and hot sauce. Yum! Pretty cheap to make, too. The beef was about $3.00 for a large package… and it’s great quality beef. They have some seriously nice meat available at almost every store – Kobe beef is available as well, but it’s much more expensive, and probably merits it’s own course.

After dinner I dropped by the yakitori to chat with the master a bit. He gave a good review on the taco, although he said it was a “little spicy”, which translated from Japanese probably means that it was way too hot. At least they won’t give me any more grief about the “spicy” food that they serve….

Tomorrow is Friday, and this weekend should be a busy one. I’m a judge for a speech contest at a high school near where I live – the pay is good, about $80 for three hours work. Afterwards, Mr. Hayashi wants to go out for lunch to congratulate Miss Kageyama on her victory, but I’m lukewarm on the idea. I’d rather relax at home in preparation for the 40k hike I’m doing on Sunday. It’s going to be a long walk – and I’ll need the rest!

Congrats to Miss Kageyama – today she got the results back from her STEP test that she took a couple of weeks ago, and she passed. Now she has to prepare for an interview test in Osaka in two weeks. It is a tough test, and one where you need to use your English fluently and naturally in a professional interview setting. Right now she’s just glad that she passed the first stage. In a few days she’ll start to get nervous about the interview. As long as she isn’t too nervous, she should do fine.

Last night the blanket kept me plenty warm. I can tell it will turn out to be worth every cent. The day at school was pretty uneventful. I ate lunch in the cafeteria with the students, and that caused a big stir. I ordered curry and rice, something traditionally eaten with a spoon. I think the students were hoping to see me use chopsticks.

My class I teach alone went especially well today. I lapsed into Japanese a couple of times to keep things going, and at one point I taught the students how to count to four in Spanish. I don’t know how it came up, but it was fun to teach. As soon as I break from the norm, I seem to have more fun teaching – I need to strike some kind of balance here.

On the way home I stopped in at the liquor store next door – I wanted to pick up a bottle or two of wine. I found a decent bottle of French red, and a Madiera that I haven’t tried yet. The owner couldn’t find the price, and so he gave it to me and told me that he’d try to find the price for next time I came in. I’ve only been in there twice in three months, but I guess I’m easy enough to find.

Tonight was ground pork and rice in a udon broth with sprouts, chopped onions, an egg, and some habanero hot sauce. It’s been cooler weather, so it was my version of comfort food.

Today I passed out my omiyage, small little maple leaf shaped cookies filled with sweet bean curd. Yum.

I had bought 32 of the little buggers, and so I passed them out to all the big wigs, all of the first year teachers, and then the rest I gave out to people that I have gotten along with. I’m not sure what the protocol is, but there are almost sixty teachers there, so some people didn’t get anything. Research is underway to see if I handled everything OK.

One great thing about the omiyage was that it got some conversations going, and people came by to thank me and ask about my trip. The school principal was particularly excited about my trip. He is such a great guy – it’s too bad I cannot speak better Japanese to have a longer conversation with him. He just comes off as a genuinely kind person.

I did three Halloween lessons, and I’m starting to dread saying “Jack O’ Lantern” over and over again. Luckily, tomorrow I start a new lesson for the first year students. It’s about schools in America, and I’m going to rub in the fact that high school students are allowed to drive to school – something that I’m sure will blow some minds.

After school I stopped in at the next town and went shopping for a warm comforter. I have a great sleeping bag that keeps me warm, but I want to keep it in reserve for the real cold nights. It’s cooled down to around 50 degrees at night – no big deal, but since I have no insulation, I am starting to feel it. I want to save the sleeping bag for the nights during winter below freezing.

Anyway, I go into a store and expect to pay about $40 or $50 for a comforter. Sticker shock! I got the cheapest one I could find that was my size, and it was about $140. There were comforters selling for 88,000 yen. That’s like $800 for a warm blanket. Yeah, right. The one I got looks fine, so I’ll try it out tonight and see how it goes.

Three days, 265 pictures. The trip was excellent. I’ve posted stories and some pictures below. You’ll want to scroll down a ways and start from the beginning. This week is a short week, and I’m starting some new lessons. I’ll write more tomorrow!

I cranked myself out of bed early today, and got my gear together. I rolled out of the hotel, and sat at the terminal for about 15 minutes waiting for my bus. The trip back was pretty uneventful. I sat at the front of the bus this time, so I could practice my kanji on road signs, and I got to see more sights this time.

One thing that was interesting – I passed through a grape growing town. The sign for the town had a cluster of grapes next to it, and there were vineyards all over the place. The vineyards were different – most were underneath some kind of cover – very few were exposed to the elements. Some had nets over them, and others were under a greenhouse-type structure. I don’t know if they were table grapes or wine grapes – probably table grapes. I managed to snap a few pics from the moving bus, but they didn’t come out that well.

Once in Kobe, I made the two train transfer and walked back home to my apartment. I spent the day unpacking and getting ready for work tomorrow. It’s starting to rain pretty hard out there, so it looks like I planned my trip well.

I got up fairly early this morning and got a big laugh when I saw that every one of the hotel room doors had a newspaper tucked underneath – every one but mine. I guess they figured (correctly) that I wouldn’t be able to read it. If I was fluent I would go and complain, but it was just a funny example of being different in Japan.

I picked up breakfast from a convenience store across the street. They had a new flavor of Calpis, one of my old favorites. This one is called “Gun, Gun, Gun!”. What a cool name. It is like regular Calpis, only with more vitamins and sugar – kind of cancelling each other out.

Today I was planning on heading to Miyajima island, home of some big hikes, beautiful shrines, tame deer and who knows what else. All of my teachers had said that it was a must, so I figured, what the heck. To get there you need to take the train about 30 minutes southwest of Hiroshima.

At the train station you catch a ferry to the island. The weather was cloudy and cool – it was looking like bad news for photography, but good news for hiking. The ferry took a large group of us across the bay, passing row upon row of platforms for oysters, another thing that Hiroshima is famous for.

As we pulled up the island, everyone got off the ferry and almost ran to the right, towards the main shrine and food stalls. I took the hint and went the other way. According to my map, I could walk almost a quarter of the way around the island and then take a hiking path to the 1200 foot peak of Mt. Misen. From there, I would be able to go wherever I liked.

That turned out to be the best decision I made. I walked through tiny towns on the coast of the island, by a high school with kids playing baseball, buildings filled with women shucking oysters, and lots of deer looking for handouts.

I guess the island is famous for the tame deer. They sell food on the island that you can give to the deer. The deer come right up to you, and you can pet them, talk to them, ask them out for dinner, whatever you like. The first time I saw one come right up, it really threw me for a loop.

As I walked along the western shore of the island, these deer couldn’t believe their luck. They must have been wondering where the heck to find the ferry terminal and all those tourists, and then here comes one walking along without a care in the world. After spending my life watching deer run like hell when they see you, it sure was weird to see them run like hell towards you.

Their initial excitement turned to depression when they found out I wasn’t willing to share my lunch with them. The sulked around nibbling at leaves forlornly, while a few optimists followed me for almost a quarter mile. I didn’t give in, though. I was made of stone.

After almost an hour of hiking along the beach, I was ready to give up and admit defeat, when a sign appeared pointing up the mountain. For the next hour and a half I climbed up the mountain through jungle-like terrain, along a well maintained path. I could tell it wasn’t popular, I met no one along the way, and kept catching spider webs across the face. Finally I reached the top, completely socked in a fog bank. I’m sure the view was beautiful normally, but I just collapsed on a rock and rested for a while. My entire body was steaming, something that I had never seen happen before. Is that supposed to happen? Did I push it too hard?

I picked a trail down, and after a few minutes started to smell something like an electrical fire – that kind of strange burned smell that usually means it’s time to change a fuse. Then some loud metallic noises, and I walked right into the tram station. There was a line of people that looked alarmed at my appearance, and I guess I would be alarmed to see a large steaming foreigner walk out of the bushes disturbing the tranquility of the clanking tram station.

I realized quickly that I must have made a wrong turn somewhere, and walked around the tram station to the other side, and then jumped in line with another bunch of alarmed tourists. I was definitely the only one breathing hard and dripping with sweat. The tram operators did not seem to mind, and packed me into a tram with a group of four concerned people, sending me down the hill the easy way.

The tourists were quiet at first, probably not reassured by my smiles and nods. I quickly fogged up the tram, thus depriving everyone of the view going down. Talk about embarrassing. I’m sure each tram going up on the other side was wondering what was happening on our tram.

At the bottom I stumbled out, almost clocking myself on the roof as I stood up, and finally made it to the bottom of the steps. I took a quick few minutes to clean myself up a little, and then noticed on the sign that they wanted 1700 yen for a round trip on the tram. I had saved a bunch of money by hiking up – nice!

Directly below the tram station was a park filled with trees that were just starting to change color. The deer were here in force, looking for scraps from all the tourists. I took lots of pictures – the colors seemed so dramatic, and I’m half colorblind. Farther down the hill I stopped to pick up some omiyage for my coworkers. I splurged on some maple leaf flavored cakes, filled with some kind of sweet bean curd. Apparently, this is the omiyage to buy in Hiroshima, so I did. I should be a big hit at work on Tuesday.

I spent some time walking around hitting the touristy stuff that I had avoided initially. I took pictures of the five story pagoda. I also walked through the Itsukushima-jinja shrine, a shrine that stands on a bay that fills up when the tide comes in. At the time, the tide was only just coming in, so it was a shrine on a muddy bay when I went through. At the mouth of the bay was a giant gate to the shrine, and that got the most photographic attention.

After so many pictures, I felt like a nature walk and explored the eastern side of the island. I ran into a bunch of Japanese youngsters wearing uniforms that said “COSMO” on the front. They were probably first graders, and they were very friendly – we greated each other in each other’s language, and spent a lot of time giggling. The COSMOnaughts went off to chase some deer around, and I went past the depressing aquarium to buy beer and oysters at a shop on my way back.

The trip back was pretty easy, although you did have to walk by countless shops selling omiyage. I think I got the best deal up on the mountain, but I didn’t really pay that much attention. I hopped the ferry back and was back in Hiroshima that evening. I tried Chinese food at a small restaurant in one of the large shopping centers, and it tasted very similar to Japanese food.

I looked around at the imported goods section of Sogo, a big department store. I found Swiss Miss Cocoa, French’s Yellow Mustard, some hot sauce, Pepperidge Farms Milano cookies, some sloppy joe mix. There was a wine shop there, but I they didn’t carry any vintage Port. I’ve been craving it big time. They had a tawny port, but I’m not a big fan of tawny ports. They had a pretty good selection of California wines, but only expensive ones. Lots of French wines (only expensive ones) and a few Italian ones that looked good.

I spent the evening walking around the shopping district, trying to resist the urge to have a second dinner back at the okonomiyaki stands. At a big “lifestyle” store I found something amazing – they were selling Christmas lights. The big surprise – they wanted almost $60 for a strand of 100 lights. Sixty bucks???!?? Don’t those cost around $5 a strand in the States? I need to start a black market xmas light trade here. Come on, sixty bucks?

Back in my hotel room, I packed up for my trip back tomorrow, and then took a long soak in the deep tub. What a great way to relax.

Today I got up around seven and headed off to Kobe to catch a bus for Hiroshima. Just catching the bus was a minor victory – none of the signs were in English, and I had to deduce some Japanese kanji characters to figure out where to go. Once I was there, I just jumped on the correct bus and settled in for a four hour bus ride.

The bus ride was cheaper than the bullet train – the bus costs around $90 round trip, and the bullet train costs around $150 round trip. I had more time than money, so I picked the bus. We stopped about halfway in Okayama to hit the restrooms and grab some snacks, and at about 1:30 in the afternoon we pulled into Hiroshima.

Mr. Hayashi had drawn a map to the hotel, but the bus dropped me off at a different location, so I really had to wing it to find the place. Once again my katakana skills paid off, and I was able to read the sign and figure out the right place. The room was tiny – just a little bit longer than I am, but I did have a private bathroom with a nice deep bathtub and shower.

I freshened up and headed out the door, but as I walked by the registration counter, the guy working there had a minor fit and kind of freaked out. Apparently the protocol is to leave your room key at the desk while you are away, and pick it up again when you get back. Strange, but OK, no problem.

While on the long bus ride I had come up with a game plan for Hiroshima. First thing I did was head to the Peace Park to see the A-bomb dome and the museum. To get there, you had to walk through Honmachi arcade, a big shopping avenue.

Hiroshima is a big town, and like any big town, there are tons of shopping areas. It is an especially interesting contrast when you walk out of Honmachi and enter the Peace Park. From noise, commercialism, the beautiful and the cool, to such a natural setting – the Peace Park was quiet and busy at the same time.

There were numerous monuments throughout the park, some more dramtic than others. The best of the bunch were the Children’s Peace Monument, and the Memorial Cenotaph. The Children’s Peace Monument was surrounded by wreaths of origami paper cranes, and featured a child lifting an origami crane at the top. The Cenotaph was aligned with the A-bomb dome, the museum, and the Flame of Peace, which is supposed to remain lit as long as there are nuclear weapons still around.

After lots of pictures, I visited the museum, and spent about an hour looking through an overwhelming exhibit documenting the history of Hiroshima before, during, and after the atomic bomb hit on 1945. The exhibits were remarkably well documented, and there was never any obvious political bias that I noticed – it just reported the facts and made a strong case against nuclear weapons. You could touch bottles that had been melted from the heat of the blast, and the pictures and models were extremely well done.

After the museum I went over to the A-bomb dome. The dome refers to the shape of the last remaining building that remained standing after the bomb dropped. The building is twisted and gutted, and is reinforced now to keep it standing. I sat for a while next to the building on a bench and watched people walk by. It was weird to think that the bomb went off right over my head.

Afterwards, I headed back towards the hotel, and took a few pictures of Hiroshima castle, which, like everything else in town, was rebuilt after 1945. There was a flower show nearby, and the leaves were just starting to change colors. In keeping with my tradition of smiling and nodding at people I walk by, I met an old man riding by on his bike – he stopped when he saw me smile at him. We talked for a bit in English and Japanese, and it turns out that he was in the war at the time of the bomb, he was in the navy away fighting battles, and lost his entire family to the A-bomb blast. I didn’t know quite what to say, but he was friendly enough, and was more interested in Arnold as governor and the wildfires of California.

For dinner I had heard that the okonomiyaki in Hiroshima was famous in Japan, so I wanted to try it out. Okonomiyaki is like a Japanese pizza, just made a little differently. I had tried it out a couple of times in Japan, and it had made a great impression. According to my guidebook, there was a place downtown that had three floors of okonomiyaki stands, and so I followed the directions, and a half hour later I was bellying up to a stand that my guidebook said was the best in all of Hiroshima.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only gaijin that had the guidebook; the owner flipped me a menu in English before I finished sitting down. I picked a pretty spicy one – it had Chinese noodles, garlic, kimchee, an egg, sprouts, onions, bacon, three different sauces, and a tortilla like thing that sat on the bottom. The difference between Hiroshima style okonomiyaki is that in Hiroshima they create layers of ingredients, but everywhere else they mix it all up so that it is evenly distributed throughout. I definitely prefer the Hiroshima method.

After a couple of beers, and a new believer in my guidebook’s recommendations, I tried to track down a bar called Mac, listed in the guidebook as a “laidback bar”. It was located across the street, but I quickly got lost and ended up in the red light district. There were tons of American soldiers walking around, and hawkers outside the bars asking thought provoking questions like, “You wanna Japanese girlfriend?”

I gave up on Mac, and went instead for a beer at the yakitori across from my hotel. It seemed like a pretty quiet place, but there was weird vibe, so I went back to my room and planned for the next day. I was asleep by 10:00 p.m.

One of my part time teachers carved this for me and brought it in yesterday. Today I took it home and lit it up. As soon as I got home the phone rang, and it was Carrie wondering if I would meet her and a friend for dinner in Himeji. I decided to go ahead and meet them there, so it was back to the big city for me.

We ended up getting Chinese food and walking around for a while. I met her friend Carla, who is also a new JET, and we talked for a long time about our experiences in our schools and with our students. I’m definitely a lucky JET, some of the stories that Carla was telling were pretty scary.

We walked back towards the station after dinner and bought McDonald’s Apple Pies, which were deep fried and tasted great. I don’t think they fry them anymore in the states, but it’s been so long, maybe I just don’t remember. We bumped into a bunch of Carrie’s students, all of them girls, and I could tell that Carrie is going to spend all next week explaining that I am not her boyfriend. We finally got free and headed back to the station, and now I’m getting packed up for my trip tomorrow. I’ll post some more after the weekend, and I should have some good pictures and stories!

Today several teachers and even the principal came up to me to ask about the safety of my family in California. There must have been a big news blitz here in Japan, because nobody has mentioned it until now.

Through e-mail and the internet I’ve been able to keep in touch with family and friends, and monitor the progress of the fires. I’ve done my best to describe what is happening to my friends here in Japan, but having never been to California, it may be difficult for them to imagine.

I am having difficulty myself imagining what it must be like. Most of my favorite hiking trails in San Diego have burned out, and the pictures I’ve seen of the smoke and ash have been amazing. Hang in there, San Diego. You’ve got friends in Japan pulling for you!