Japanese-style Inns, Oysters and a Sobering Afternoon

So we took the street tram to Miyajima guchi and then the 10 min ferry ride to the island of Miyajima. We arrived on the island around 1pm. My first impressions: Wow, to me this is the epitome of Japanese nature and beauty. There’s a very surreal feel on the island. There are wild deer that roam the streets. Little shops selling traditional Japanese foods, toys and gifts. This area is famous for their oysters.

Although the oyster season is February, the restaurants serve them year round. Well, DH and I are HUGE fans of oysters. So the three days we were there… oysters, oysters, oysters. Grilled oysters, raw oysters, pan fried oysters, deep fried oysters… well you get the picture. It was fabulous!!! Oysters are very expensive where we are from. So we went a little nuts while we were there. An average oyster dish with about 5 oysters cost about 1000Yen.

What we loved doing on Miyajima was renting a bike (rental at the pier) for the day. Initially we thought we could cycle around the island but it’s actually WAY too much. Parts of the island is very hilly. But it was neat having the freedom to go parts of the island where there were NO tourists. Miyajima is very touristy. We heard German, French, Spanish, Korean, as well as English on the streets. Definitely recommend renting a bike and getting off the beaten path.

Another fun thing about Miyajima is that their speciality is miyajima manjus (a little cake shaped into a Japanese maple leaf filled with cream cheese, chocolate, vanilla, green tea, and a myriad other flavors). Many of the little shops sell them and DH and I had fun buying every kind of flavor and rating them. DH’s fave was the chocolate and mine was the cream cheese.

The guide books do tell you that the charm of Miyajima is in the early morning and in the evenings (much like Venice) when the tourists are gone. We have to agree. Our 2 nights and 3 days on Miyajima were magical. We loved it!

We really enjoyed our stay here at this gorgeous, new stylish business hotel. It's right on Nobori-cho so it's super convenient for hopping on the Nobori-cho tram that runs right through the city (the tram will take you right in front of the A-bomb dome and war museum, as well as the ferry terminal to Miyajima). The rooms were very small but the space was well designed.

The best part was the extremely generous breakfast buffet in the dining room on the first floor which was included in the room rates. There is a couple of computer terminals with free internet access in the lobby. The service is very professional. Oh! and i should mention that my husband really loved the free espresso and hot chocolate machine that is on every floor. It was nice to go to bed every night with a cup of hot cocoa and also have a latte in the morning while we were getting ready, before heading downstairs for breakfast.

Our room rate was 8800 yen for a double room including breakfast.

Highly recommended!

http://www.hotel-active.com/

Slightly hesitant after hearing it described as a "Japanese-style pizza", the description could not be more wrong. The batter is a savory pancake-like mix and they throw in an amazing variety of things, such as shredded cabbage, shrimp, pork, onions, and you can choose either soba (thin noodles similar to Chinese chow-mein) or the the udon noodles (thick wide noodes). After it's been grilled on both sides right in front of you, they will pour a teriyaki style sauce over stop, a little bit of mayonaise (sounds strange but it's good!) and some seasoned nori (seaweed) flakes.

Hiroshima is famous for their okonomiyakis so we went to the Okonomiyaki Mura, which is a four floor building filled with stalls making these pancakes. We arrived around 5pm and it was pretty empty. We thought the place itself was a bit dive-y. Not really squeaky clean after getting used to the Japanese standards, we thought. But we plunged in and ordered ourselves one meat pancake and one seafood. We were not disappointed! Loved them. Different but definitely delicious. Don't forget to chug an ice cold beer with it as well.

We ended up on the 2nd floor, first stall on the right (Mr. Nakamura is the friendly and helpful proprietor) merely because he was one of the few places open at that ridiculously early time (blame it on the jet lag coming from the West Coast).

The husband is an avid WWII history buff, having planned many trips around places such as Normany, Berlin, Dachau concentration camp, and of course some of the best war museums in London. So of course the main reason we went to Hiroshima was to see the A-bomb dome and the museum. At the museum, we met some high school students from Australia who were there for a school trip. What an educational trip that would be!

We were more than a little sad when walking through the displays showing the charred remains of little elementary school uniforms.

In my Grade 4 class in Canada, we had read the story of 11-year old Sadako Sasaki with leukemia from the radiation exposure during the bombing and it was very moving to see some of the first editions of the book displayed. In the park, we also saw the millions of cranes that are folded each year by children all over the world, in memory of Sadako and hopes of a better, more peaceful future.

The experience was sobering but everything was well presented and the information was unbiased and extremely educational. Of course it was hard to leave without shedding a few tears, when pondering the devastating effects of WWII.

I found the hotel choices for Hiroshima difficult. The Royal Rihga Hotel was the only one that seemed to fit our expectations. By this time, we had stayed at a business hotel (good value but small, no nice hotel perks) and the Japanese style inn (great experience but no facilities to speak of). We were ready to stay in a nice, big hotel. But this hotel had some terrible reviews on tripadvisor. So with very low expectations, we checked in but we were pleasantly surprised. The room (ours was just the standard room) was very nice. We had the view of the ocean, not the castle. Although, next time I wouldn’t mind the castle view. The service was excellent. DH was impressed by the bathroom mirror which had a heated area so after you shower, there’s a nice big square that is not fogged up. Hey, it’s the little things we love, right?