eating our way from hiroshima to miyajima and beyond

after meeting up with Erin, our attention turned to food. not saying that Erin likes eating, but a note that she knew exactly what to eat and what to try. actually, since we've been here, our attention has been on food - see previous posts on meals had in Osaka. Haynes and I compared this journey to prior travels where eating snack bars and packed food (even Chef Boyardee canned ravioli in Rome) was the norm. Not the case now that we are older, wiser and hungrier.

so, our journey in food continues. since the last blog post, after our run, we found a mom and pop grill and tasted the local Hiroshima version of Okonomiyaki - which included soba noodles and an egg (kind of like the spaghetti omelette described in some of the Cameroon posts below). I was the only one of us who could conquer my entire serving, which we ate across from a group of elementary school kids with backpacks.

after this meal, we wrote and sent our first postcards and then caught the local trolley toward Miyajima - an island home to the world famous floating Torii gate of the Itsukushima shinre. once off the trolley, we rode a ferry to the island, met with the local deer (see below one trying to eat me) and labored through a sweaty run up a hill and entered our ryokan - a traditional Japanese hotel where the floors are tatami mats, the room is spacious and the rules are traditional (no shoes).

after cooling down, we mozied over to the Torii gate at low tide and shared photo space with a black-shirted boy band and hundreds of little snails occupying the shells littered throughout the puddles.

we walked around the gate barefoot (except for Haynes who just got his alpargatas soaked), in what seemed like mud and algae fields, admiring the imperfection of the uprooted trees, painted bright orangeish-red (actually vermillion - traditional color of all Torii gates) to match the adjacent shrine. I made my addition to the gate, tossing a rock from the sand onto the lower beam of the gate, joining dozens of others placed there over the years. as we set our feet back above the high tide line onto the island, we met a nice family from California whose oldest daughter just moved to Kobe with her three daughters - the two younger of whom displayed their grasp of the Japanese language by singing us a song about different colors of tulips.

during our walk to the gate and back, we added to our gastro-focused journey, tasting steamed oysters (amazing), deep fried manju (custard-filled - even more amazing) and kakigori (shaved ice - and Erin's favorite thing, her Japanese email is even kakigori).

back to our floor mats, we ate dinner - more or less a taster for everything raw and from the sea that you could think of. Erin couldn't even provide me with a list, so here is a list that includes the only things I can remember: pickled plum, hormones, raw shrimp (which I cooked in the boiling nabe pot), fresh salmon, tako (octopus) and wasabi salad, snail (which I haven't had since Cameroon) and more. See the photo below to see if you can identify more.

after dinner, we used the onsen (public bath) - sitting down to bath with other naked men and then stepping into a hot tub, more or less. after the bath, we walked back down to the Torii gate in our yukata (traditional robe). at night, the gate is lit - really highlighting its "floating" nature. they say this is one of the "top 3 views of Japan" - a statement I can definitely agree with (and will continue to compare to other views throughout our travels).

on thursday morning, we woke up for a 3 mile run and a third visit to the Torii gate. after stretching, back at the ryokan, we changed into our yukatas and headed to breakfast, yet another round of food tasting - another list that I can't make because we couldn't really name everything on our plates. But I know it included miso soup, rice, salmon, radish, seaweed and much more.

after breakfast, it was back to the onsen, where we bathed, relaxed and then hit our tatami mats for the last time to pack our bags. in the lobby we left our bags, where they grouped them by throwing a pink net over them, and headed for a visit to the shrine itself. we took the back route to the 5-storied pagoda, where we answered questions in English for some local school children. after the pop quiz, we paid to enter the Itsukushima shrine, modeled for the camera in front of some black and white stripes mixed in with the vermillion and saw the Torii gate for the last time from the view of the shrine.

after our visit, we took a final walk through the "mile" of food - where we again ate oysters, kakigori and deep fried manju. I'm telling you - amazing. back at the ryokan, we gathered our gear, caught a ride to the port and got back on the ferry to the mainland. there we caught the slow train to Hiroshima and connected to the bullet train to Kyoto, capping off our two days of eating with a Japanese-style McDonald's chicken sandwich at the station.