Okonomiyaki- Hiroshima

Hiroshima area, I'm told, is famous for its okonomiyaki, aka Japanese pancake. I thought I'd throw in some pictures. It was quite a process to make one of these, and the chefs were pretty good. There are lots of these little "stalls" where you just gather around the the hot grill and tell them what you want. Then they create this pancake layer by layer: pancake, cabbage, sprouts, noodles, bacon shrimp, squid, cheese, egg, bbq sauce, mayo, etc., etc., until you get something that looks about like this:

As per usual, I thought it was quite delicious, and had to finish everybody's plate.

Iwakuni

On our trip, we stayed at Iwakuni Air Station. And the town which was near was coincidentally called Iwakuni. I tried this panoramic photo of the Kintai Bridge.

Here's a closer-upper photo of the bridge. On top of the hill behind is the Iwakuni Castle- see below. Bri's looking quite Hollywood.


Iwakuni Castle- see above.


Luckily, we found nourishment later that day. This is a unique little restaurant labeled affectionately as "The Chicken Shack" by the Americans in the area. Why, I don't really know. We did have some chicken on a stick, but that was about it. I got a pot full of charcoal to cook my own meat on. It was outstanding.


After dinner, we were walking around and of course ran into- you guessed it- angry samurai...


And even more angry samurai...

Luckily we escaped with our heads still on our shoulders.

Minna Island

This island was dubbed "better than Disneyland" by the kids. And all because of deer. If the kids would have had their way, we would have stayed in one spot the entire day, and would probably still be there today, petting the deer. Luckily, I'm bigger than they are... While on our trip to Hiroshima, we took a short ferry ride to Minna Island. In our travel guide book, this is one of the top 3 most scenic spots in all of Japan. Admittedly, it was quite nice. Have a look...




Ah, the deer...


I beilieve this picture was taken right after the big one had eaten my map. Hungry little fellas. And not very picky.





Everything was going great until we ran into angry samurais...


This building is on the way up to the top of the mountain and it's housing a flame that has supposedly been burning for over 1000 years. But the guy tending the fire didn't look a day over 900, so I don't know...


View from the top...


Finally, I discovered a very important life-truth on this beatiful island: I look a little bit funny without ears. Even more funny than just my normal everyday look.


Oh, and I alomost forgot another important thing. The world's largest wooden rice paddle. Words cannot describe the awesomeness.

Trip to Hiroshima

So we took a little trip across the pond up to the mainland of Japan. We were able to catch a military flight out of Kadena up to Iwakuni Air Station near Hiroshima. Here are a few pictures...

This is called the A-Bomb dome. It is one of the few buildings that weren't completely flattened by the blast on August 6, 1945. The hypocenter, or where the bomb was detonated, was almost directly above this building.

This is a model of the city. The red ball represents the blast radius one second after detonation. The A-Dome is right below it next to the river where it splits. As you can see, there wasn't much left. Everything was flattened or burned for some distance.

There was a Peace Memorial Park. One of the cool displays was the childrens monument. one story tells of a little girl who had radiation sickness. She believed if she folded 1000 paper cranes she would be healed. She ended up dying. But there are literally thousands and thousands of paper cranes in many display cases. Cranes are now a symbol of peace.

After a long day, the girsl enjoy some sushi. Well, semi-sushi. This kind only has a slice of cucumber in the middle.

Happy Halloween!!

And now, a scary halloween poem. What is it that makes clowns so scary?

Erin was a mummy. Brianna was a clown. We happened to carve our pumpkins as a mummy and a clown? Coincidence? I think not!

Inexpressible Joy

This blog post finds itself out of order, as I am not currently up to date. But it can not wait. I want to share it with you all, and if it were possible I would tell the whole world. Every so often, you have one of those days... Today was one of those days that has to be added to the Top 10, to sit along side the day I married my beautiful wife, and the birth days of my adorable daughters. Today, I had the privilege and honor of taking one of my beautiful daughters into the water and baptizing her, and thereafter laying my hands on her head to confirm her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and bestowing the gift of the Holy Ghost upon her. Were I the best writer/poet in the universe, my words would not- nay, could not- adequately describe the feelings that are in my heart. Obviously, I'm nowhere near that writer, but a picture is worth 1,000 words- so here's 7,000 words... Although I think these pictures are worth much more than that...