Springing into Singapore and Japan.

[GarrettM]

Seafood is of course a big part of the diet around here. Oysters in particular. You can see all the oyster beds in the channel when you come across on the ferry. Not my thing at all though.
But clearly they sell plenty of them. Straight from the barbecue.


Plenty of beer options in the vending machine.


Including the local drops.


And we enjoyed these delicious pre-lunch cornets, filled with housemade icecream. Cookies and cream in one, and black sesame in the other. The sesame took a little getting used too, but was actually rather nice.

 

[GarrettM]

Speaking of lunch, we were debating where to stop for a bite. Once again the need to find space for the pram was an issue.
Plus we couldn't really agree on what we wanted, which is a common problem for us.
But we couldn't go past this place, with its exquisite looking fabric replica offerings.

 

[GarrettM]

A little husband and wife run place, dong standard local stuff. Okonomiyaki, noodles, and all the rest. Simple but good.


And an excuse for a Miyajima Pale Ale!


Bub really loves her noodles, and she's become quite adept at the one chopstick method of shovelling them into her mouth.

 

[love_the_life]

View attachment 99455

A little husband and wife run place, dong standard local stuff. Okonomiyaki, noodles, and all the rest. Simple but good.
View attachment 99456 View attachment 99457

And an excuse for a Miyajima Pale Ale!
View attachment 99458

Bub really loves her noodles, and she's become quite adept at the one chopstick method of shovelling them into her mouth.
View attachment 99459

Looks great and I like little one's technique - very impressive

 

[GarrettM]

After lunch it was time to say goodbye to Miyajima. But not before coming across another Hello Kitty statue.


And also being amused by some deer trying to get into the local restaurants. Clear to see why they have semi-auto doors.


Bye bye deer!


And back on the ferry, where we got some snaps of people walking around the sandpit that had been the floating gate.

 

[GarrettM]

Thusly our daytrip to Miyajima came to an end. Another fantastic Japanese experience.

That's it for today... tomorrow I will post about out late arvo visit to Orizuru Tower, and then on to our last destination, and all the frustration and drama it brought us.

 

[love_the_life]

Yes, I am wondering what the drama was - hope it not too serious.

 

[GarrettM]

After our Miyajima visit we used the late afternoon period to visit Orizuru Tower - HIROSHIMA ORIZURU TOWER

I believe it used to be known as the Mazda Building. It's a 13 storey office building which has been refurbished in the past couple of years.
The ground floor has a souvenir and luxury goods shop, and also the ticket counter for going upstairs.
There's cafes on a higher floor, and then the viewing area and other stuff on the 12th floor. But for the life of me I couldn't tell you what else is in the building.

The website doesn't offer much either.

Bring your passport as that gets you a 50% discount on entry. The website has some better images and explanations of what's going on. But I'll do my best.

 

[GarrettM]

There's a very open wooden deck observatory, called Hiroshima Hill. It overlooks the Dome and much of the park.


If you happen to have say, a small child who loves steps, this is a good way to keep them occupied.


It may look a little unsafe, but there's a discreet low barrier covered by hedge on the edges of the platform. Plus some very sturdy wires to discourage anyone from doing anything silly.

 

[GarrettM]

The views are good. You can even see across to the islands, including Miyajima. The sun caused a bit of a problem for our pics but oh well.
One of the few times we got the little monster to actually smile for a camera.


And down here was the old Hiroshima Municipal Baseball Stadium, which was closed and demolished about 10 years ago.


The Carp now play out at Mazda Zoom Zoom Stadium, just south-east of the JR station. Sadly they were not in town when we were. Sigh.

 

[GarrettM]

Once we'd finished with the view we went inside to make some paper cranes (Orizuru) to add to the Orizuru Wall.
Or at least MrsGM did. My origami skills are poor, and I made myself useful by monitoring the child.
We climbed some more steps, and played with some of the interactive exhibits.

Best seen here: 12F ORIZURU SQUARE - HIROSHIMA ORIZURU TOWER


Once the wife had finished her cranes, we were all directed to the Wall, which is terribly misnamed. It should be called the Window, as it's all glass.
You walk through a glass door, onto a glass platform, and drop your crane - and associated well wishes - into the ever growing pile of similar cranes.

There's a really good pictorial explanation here: Hiroshima Orizuru Tower

We didn't know about the see through floor, and MrsGM took a moment to get her nerve up, but eventually tiptoed out and dropped her crane.
Bub of course has no idea about heights, or fear, so just waltzed on in and rammed up against the glass.

The ladies who guided us through said there was something like 180,000 cranes in the collection so far, with plenty of room for that to grow.

 

[GarrettM]

Friday May 12. Time for our last train ride of this trip, as we're off to Fukuoka.


"Oh did you say ThunderTrain?"

 

[GarrettM]

So early in the planning of this trip, knowing we would be flying out of cough, we looked for a hotel that would be close to shopping, for last minutes splurges, and not to far from the airport.

We opted for Canal City Washington. It was the wrong choice.
Canal City is a five storey department store, with some high end restaurants mixed in, all built around an artificial canal. Sounds fine in theory, but it's a bloody maze of escalators, different wings, overpriced boutique stores, and assorted garbage.
Not to mention the room we booked was an expanded shoebox, and I was forced to spend the night on the floor, so wife and child could get some sleep. And by floor I mean the 18in wide gap between the bed and the wall.

Plus they had some crazy loud water/light/anime display every night. Every hour from 7pm to 10pm. Sounded like it was right outside our window.
Anyway... some pics.
The view.


No pics of the room. Think closetish.

The canal. Note the lights and speakers. They work well.

 

[GarrettM]

I did not shop at Mind Blow.

 

[GarrettM]

Of course, arriving around midday on Friday, most of our problems were ahead of us. Blissfully unaware of this, we checked out the restaurants, and found one that looked ok for lunch.
And it actually was ok. No complaints about this.

 

[GarrettM]

After lunch it was more walking around the shops, trying to figure out how to get from a to b without detouring through the rest of the alphabet.
We failed.
Came across a million of these gumball type machines, adding to bub's souvenir collection.

 

[GarrettM]

I'd put off doing some gift shopping cause I hate lugging unnecessary things when travelling, and didn't want to complicate packing for the wife.

Yes. I leave the tedious task of repacking suitcases for travel to the wife. She knows best where to put bub's stuff, and I only get into trouble when I touch her stuff, as I'm always putting things in the wrong place.

In return, I keep the child entertained, and obviously take care of the actual MOVING of the luggage.

Sadly, Canal City is full of generic cough or overpriced touristy cough with little genuine cultural relevance.

So we perused the shops for a while, grabbed some tops for bub and her friends - because that's a thing apparently - and just loitered around, until we had no choice but to return to our shoebox.

 

[love_the_life]

I suppose up till this point you have been lucky with accommodation so it could have been worse maybe. I know what you mean about the gap between the wall and the bed - one hotel we had in Kyoto was similar. I had to have that side as MrLtL thought I would probably fall off the raised bit of the floor which was around the bed. As it was I tripped up the step during the day at one point and did a pretty convincing face plant on the floor. Luckily no harm done apart from a small bruise on my forehead.

 

[GarrettM]

Soon enough it was time for dinner.
One of the few GOOD things about Canal City is it has a dedicated ramen floor, called Ramen Stadium.
There are eight unique ramen cafes, each representing a different style, and chef, from various regions across Japan.
https://taiken.co/single/a-ramen-experience-in-fukuoka-ramen-stadium

It's quite competitive apparently.

 

[GarrettM]

Joining in on the fun...


We picked the restaurant in the middle of the photo of the previous post.
Helping dad...


MrsGM took the safe option.


Where as I had a quite heated beef recipe, which was delicious.


As usual, bub had plain noodles. "No like spicey noodle."