Today, we checked out of Hotel Taiyo and made our way to Hiroshima. We booked our Shinkansen to start at Kyoto so we could spend more time at the basement of the mall :) It was a great excuse to find lunch for the train. I got to buy my fishcakes (delicious), pickled veg(for home so Elgin can try to make it home), and okonomiyaki (tasty - more worchestershire sauce).
We arrived in Hiroshima station and took a local bus that stopped near the hostel. The hostel is great! I've only stayed at one other hostel in Taiwan in 1995, but I think this has got to be one of the nicest hostels around. It's way nicer than Hotel Taiyo, different vibe all together, but yes, it does cost more than the Hotel Taiyo. We have a bigger room that can fit a double futon and a traditional japanese table with seating pads. I think it's about the size of 12 tatami mats. There's also a full kitchen, living room/lounge area, in room internet (as you've noticed, I've added some pictures to the previous postings) , private showers, bicycle rentals, and all you want to know about sightseeing and how to get there. It's pretty cool!
After we got settled in, we walked to the nearest large supermarket called Spark. We bought some choy, mushrooms, onions, tofu, rice, and chicken to cook dinner at the hostel. On our walk back to the hostel, we decided to stop by one of the bridges. We saw lovely cherry blossom trees surrounding the area and small fishing boats in the water. The whole vibe we felt was very peaceful and calm even though there were plenty of cars and people walking home from work. It feels so different from our last location in Shin Imamiya of Osaka.
Elgin and I had fun cooking in this kitchen. New gadgets that we couldn't read and new things to figure out. The stove top had interesting buttons, and it talks to you when you initiate the heat. While cooking, we heard this cute melody that sounded like someone's cell phone, but it was really the hot water pot telling us that it was ready. Even the rice pot made a cute melody when it was done. Cute chime melodies in the supermarket, on the trains, in the bathrooms (flush), and on most appliances. What will they come up with next?! Elgin and I think it could be some type of psychological -what's that word?- that keeps people constantly happy and cheery. Every where we go, there's the melodies, and we just move our heads side to side with the chimes.
After Elgin and I finished cooking dinner, one of the hostel guests mentioned that our dinner was probably the most elaborate dinner he's ever seen cooked in a hostel ever. hehe :) I had to mention that Elgin was a chef and then he got it :) We even had enough rice and fish cake leftover to make some funky looking onigiri for tomorrow's snack. Most onigiri is shaped in a triangle, some how our's turned out diamond and square like..oh well. One more thing, Elgin bought a sake from the market that had came in a cute cup that had 2 blowfish on the outside. He bought it and there was an actual blowfish tail in the sake. I knew he should have asked someone to translate the box for him before he drank it anyhow. I thought he could have been drinking fish cod oil or something. Anyhow, after he drank it, we had someone read the box and then they said it's supposed to be drank warm. next time he said..
No comments:
Post a Comment