We had a pretty relaxing day today, which was much needed. We slept in fairly late, enjoyed some coffees in the morning and took some time to really nail down our budget. Up until this point we had been keeping track of daily expenses with a target of spending only $150 a day. Some days we were over budget, for example our most expensive day was $219 and our cheapest was $29. Fortunately, as it turns out we are under budget!! Woo hoo, which means we may actually make it 6 months if we keep it up. What a relief it was to us to have all our finances entered on an organized spreadsheet. We have both been stressing about money since we first started tracking our spending so to finally get organized and see an overview of it all was such a relief. As a result, we had a great day relaxing with no stress.
Originally, we had planned to do a hike today through the Sandan Gorge which is 1 and 1/2 hours away from Hiroshima by bus. We decided to be flexible and take the day to relax instead. So, tomorrow we're heading there. It'll be an 11 km hiking trail through waterfalls/forest. Should be fun.
Once we finished lunch we headed to the Peace Memorial Park near the museum. Here are few of the pics we took while there:
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Even today, we felt pretty emotional being there after having learnt so much about the amount of suffering caused by the atomic bomb. I remember learning briefly about the event in high school, but I certainly don't remember understanding the magnitude of it. Jeff and I decided we want to take our kids here one day, when they're old enough to truly appreciate it. It's a place I think everyone needs to see for themselves. Nuclear weapons are a very scary concept, and still a very real threat, that in North America is not addressed nearly enough. The USA has 8000 of them, Russia 10000. Tests are run regularly throughout the year and as Jeff noted, emit toxic radiation into the environment. It's messed up and it needs to stop. Each time a nuclear test takes place, the city of Hiroshima sends a letter urging the country that conducted the test to stop their use of nuclear weapons and they use their suffering to set an example for the world. All their letters are up on the wall in the museum. It's remarkable. I love Hiroshima.
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We also checked out the musuem again today since it's only 50 Yen to enter which is about $0.60 per person. We wanted to read the stories about the victims again, so that we will never forget them.
From there we headed to dinner in search of a restaurant recommended by the book and our hostel that specializes in the local specialty of Oysters! Sadly, for some reason the place was closed. And it looked sooo nice. It was right along the river near a bridge too so it would have made for a very romantic setting. We had to settle for the cafe next door which was pricey and the food portions left something to be desired.
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The food was good, but it just wasn't enough for us fatties. So, the search for more food continued. We made our way through the streets on foot, which we are realizing is our favourite way to see cities. We will be doing more walking in the cities we visit from now on. We found a cheap little place where we shared a nice bowl of noodle soup. The poor server didn't speak a word of English but we managed to somehow communicate with our hands and by pictures. Guess we'll have to get used to this now before heading to China where I don't think too many people will be speaking English to us!
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Dinner was yummy and this filled us enough to satisfy. We're learning some tricks here on how to save money everyday. We have come to love Subway here. They have some interesting sandwiches on their menu. Yesterday I had an avocado and shrimp sandwich with wasabi soya sauce in it for dinner. It was delicioso!! We bought a 12 inch turkey sandwich last night that we had planned on eating for lunch during our hike today, but we ended up eating it at the hostel. It had basil mayonnaise which was also very interesting and very tasty. But, basically these sandwiches are even cheaper than the ones we have been preparing from scratch and they come prepared with lots more veggies than we were using. So today after dinner we went in search of another subway to buy our lunch for tomorrow. We lucked out because it was turkey day and we only paid 700Yen for a 12 inch. We were so proud of ourselves.
So that was our day. And I forgot to mention, we tried the Japanese Takoyaki dish the other day which are essentially fried Octopus balls. We decided if we ever need to curb our hunger, we'll just eat some of those. They made us lose our appetite in no time!
Good night,
Patty
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