DAY 8 (HIROSHIMA) August 10, 2024 (repost from KCR/ER1 Japan Tour 2024)

This morning we gathered in the hotel lobby for 9am after eating the breakfast that was provided for us. It was very good and there were many different options like miso, soup, rice, bread, croissants, and different types of fish. This is what our breakfast set up looked like.

After breakfast, we took a short walk to the subway station where we took a very modern looking subway which was a short ride and then we took about a 30 minute ride on the train to the ferry which took us to Miyajima. The ferry ride was short, but we had a very good view of both the mainland of Japan and the island. It was nice on the ferry to get a good breeze after being outside in the brutal heat. > >

After the ferry ride, we all walked together to the entrance of the shrine. The shrine was very cool because it was built over water. because of this, we got a nice photo with everyone!

Also, check out this cool picture Crawford took!

After walking through the shrine, we had free time so people split up. I (London) went to the Miyajima aquarium, which was very cool. It wasn’t very different from an aquarium that I’d visit in America except there were some interesting fish that I wouldn’t see.

After the aquarium, we walked along the street with lots of shops and we ended up at probably the most expensive lunch place you would find in Japan. However, it was worth it because the food was very, very good.

Brie, Dante, Aria and I (Chloe) went to an area with a lot of street food and had kara age, Japanese fried chicken. We walked up the street for a while; it was packed with dozens of shops.

We wandered into a Japanese jewelry shop and bought a few souvenirs, and then we decided to take the ropeway up to the top of the mountain. We had to hike up to the the start of the ropeway, which took about 15 minutes. Then we entered the first gondola lift, which was about 15 or 20 minutes long. The second lift was about 5 minutes and took us to the top, where we had a short walk to the very top of the observatory, where you could see around an entire side of the island and across the water to Hiroshima. The view was incredible.

After getting back to the bottom, we had to rush to get back to our meeting point in time, but we still stopped for some matcha ice cream. At our meeting point we all sang ‘happy birthday’ to Sasha America-style (joyfully loud), and then we took the ferry and two trains back to our hotel in Hiroshima.

Chloe & London