Sunday morning in Hiroshima, Tyler and I woke to meet Nisrene at the Memorial Cathedral for World Peace for mass. This was my fifth official time going to church in Japan! What a record! Anyway, the place was beautiful and again the mass was in Japanese and I had pretty much no idea what they were saying, but it was a good experience. Especially since it was the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing and the Hiroshima anniversary had just been a few days prior. On our way out we stopped at their store to get a few souvenirs to remember the place, and a nice woman gave us free postcards (actually pictures they had taken of the church) after I had attempted to purchase a couple.
Stepping outside, it started to rain! Luckily, this was the only rainy day of our trip. We headed north I believe to see a garden. However, when we got there an older man told us not to come in the garden and to go to the castle first. We didn't really understand what he was saying. We thought he wanted us to see the castle first and then the garden, but unfortunately we never made it back to the garden.
Hiroshima castle is completely rebuilt since..well..you know...it didn't exactly survive. Now that I think of it I can't remember what it was like on the inside. Most of the castles here are museums now after being rebuilt or renovated so many times, and they no longer appear to be castles on the inside. I think I have visited too many castles, but I do remember Hiroshima castle being quite beautiful on the outside (I like the coloring) so I assume it must have been really great back when it existed.
I remember Nisrene wanted to leave early so she could get home to get ready for work on Monday. I was sad to see her go. I was stuck with Tyler! (Haha, just kidding!)
After we walked Nisrene back to Hiroshima Station, Tyler and I headed to a contemporary art museum by tram/streetcar. Back before the bombing, Hiroshima had streetcars, and they have them now too! I think they are really awesome to watch. They seem slow when riding though, I guess because you move along with traffic and also get in the way of cars and buses and taxis, so I don't think they are really any faster than riding a bus, but they are roomier!
Now, Tyler said he wanted to go to this museum on Saturday but we never went, so I let him go on Sunday. We had to walk up a huuuuuge hill (exaggerating) to get to the museum. Tyler told me all art museums are on top of hills. That's just how it is. Think of Cincinnati. Now, we get up there and we buy our tickets (and the lady gives us the wrong ones, geez). We just got the permanent exhibit tickets. (Museums are really inexpensive to visit here in general, and most have student discounts or free for children etc. It's great, probably why everyone is so smart.)
We set off through the exhibits...which were a little scarce. Huge white walled rooms with a painting, a sculpture, and something that may be a bench or artwork. Tyler touched something and almost got jumped by one of the ladies standing guard. But I saved him.
Then we found an Andy Warhol painting of Campbells soup cans, and we got a little excited. But nothing else really stood out. Tyler does not think contemporary/modern art is really art. He says it makes him angry. He got a little angry, but I think he just kept most of it to himself.
We got to the last exhibit which was a temporary set-up that they advertised on some posters outside the museum entrance. It was called "White-Out". Basically, they took some pre-existing art pieces, sculptures and statues and placed them in a large room. Then they took some sort of white material, I'd say it was something between fiberglass insulation and that white stuffing you put in teddy bears, and they covered the statues, sort of as if it had snowed? Not sure, but we thought it was pretty funny. I took lots of pictures. We aren't very good at appreciating 'art'.
After that thoroughly enriching experience, Tyler and I wandered around outside looking at more artwork before we headed off down the hill and in a northerly direction. We came across a "Sky Walk", aka an electric escalator out in the woods. Silly Japanese.
This is when we got lost for quite a while. I wanted to go to the baseball stadium because the Hiroshima Carps were playing the Hanshin Tigers! I mean who wants to miss that?? I think it was around 4 pm when we started walking and the game started at 6. We walked for a long time. And then we walked some more. And then we found many other stadiums and got confused. We walked some more. I complained about random things. Like my feet hurting probably. I bet I was hungry too. Tyler had to put up with a lot.
I was pretty sure we had to cross a river somewhere, and we finally found a river but no bridge. We walked along a road for a while trying not to get hit by the cars flying past and finally made it to a bridge.
We walked some more.
And alas! We were almost to the stadium! YAY! It was nearing six, and you could see the people in their red shirts (Hiroshima color, oh and they use the Reds C shaped logo thing (I don't know what that even is...)). We followed the people, and made it to the stadium. We took some pictures, and I bought some baseball cards (I'm soo cool!). We checked the ticket prices and they were too expensive for us. Plus, the cheapest seats weren't even in the stadium, they were like floating outside on the map. They were also 3000 yen or about 32 dollars. Oh, and they were sold out.
Now I am 100% sure at this point I was starving. I had a map with me of Hiroshima that showed popular (touristy/international cuisine) restaurants. We found a place that served tacos. Then we were off!
The lady who served us at the restaurant was not Japanese! Her name was Daniela and she spoke Spanish. Neither Tyler and I could remember any useful restaurant phrases in Spanish. We spent most of the meal thinking of the word for check. The food was in smaller portions than an American restaurant, but they had tacos!! Haha, okay I did not even order the tacos! I got fajitas. They were delicious. And Tyler ordered us chips and guacamole. Which was also delicious. Oh, guacamole I will see you soon. It was a very heavenly meal and I was very very happy. They also had Spanish music playing and I danced in my seat the whole time.
After this, I think we walked back to the dorm? Who knows. Sometime we met our new roommates in our dorm. Two girls were there the night before, but we had only met one of them and she was from Germany. (I also made her a little mad by being loud when I was going to bed, oops! I was just trying to shut the curtains!) So our new roommates were two Japanese men, twenty-five years old, and not too bad looking. Wink. Since I am shy and afraid of speaking Japanese, Tyler talked to them mostly while I stood around awkwardly. They were really nice guys on vacation like us from work, and they thought it was good to come to Hiroshima and to remember what happened.
Sometime later we slept I presume. Then it became Monday...
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