Hiroshima

 Today we slept in for hubby’s sake, he’s had a bit to much excitement for his taste lately. Eventually though, we checked out from the hotel and took the Hakata shinkansen to Hiroshima. When finally there (the longest trip so far I think?) we took a tram down to the Peace Memorial park. Cause come on. Why else go out of the way down to Hiroshima?

It was beautiful and also very emotional. I started crying while reading a plaque at the A-bomb Dome. We also entered the museum but hubby had to leave quite soon; he found the atmosphere of all the tourists plowing through as if it was just an ordinary museum confusing and overwhelming. I started crying again reading about the remains of various children they’d found who’d been working in the city centre at the time of the bomb, and seeing the personal items parents had been able to identify them by, because there were hardly any bodies left.

After the museum we just strolled up the street going to the main train station, collecting ourselves and trying to find somewhere to eat. We ended up having Hiroshima style okonomiyaki, which I liked and hubby didn’t. And I forgot my parasol at the restaurant ;-; but when I remembered we were already at the station to catch our train onwards. First a Sakura back to Shin-Ôsaka and then the plan was onwards to Kakegawa. At first we panicked a bit, because there were no Kodama left running to Tôkyô, it was too late in the evening, just Nozomi. But luckily there were Kodama running to Mishima still, which meant it’d stop at Kakegawa where we’d booked our hotel for the night. We arrived close to midnight and collapsed into bed more or less.

Back to Tôkyô. Kappabashi

 This morning we took the Kodama again, back to Tôkyô! (I bought locally grown figs at the train station, they were huge and the most delicious ones I’ve ever had <3). Next hotel was a small ryokan near Ueno koen, where we just stopped to shower and unload our luggage before making our way to Ueno station and then Kappabashi. I… was in a very strange, anxious and unpleasant (for everyone) mood on the way. I didn’t handle a slight change in our plans to get there very well and then every possible decision of what to possible do just felt wrong and stressful.

We got to Kappabashi eventually, with the intention of finding a sake set. In the very first store we enter hubby finds one he liked and which fulfilled all of his, a bit eccentric, ideas’ of what a sake set should look like. I thought it looked plain hideous. So I said, no, don’t buy it yet, we’ve got to check the other stores as well! (This goes very much against hubby’s philosophy of getting the first somewhat adequate/fitting thing he lays his eyes on while out shopping for something specific, to reduce the shopping time). Hubby hates browsing stores. It makes him anxious. But we set out. I try to point out prettier pieces of pottery but which fulfil his preset idea. It doesn’t go well. At all. He’s getting in a more and more unmanageable mood and I’m getting annoyed that he won’t accept any of the actually nice pottery. So. Eventually we’ve gone up and down the street, both exhausted and in pissy moods but hubby returns to the first store and buys that hideous set he first clapped his eyes on. At least it was cheap… :/ 

Now we just wanted to find some food, but before managing that we have a small fight/falling out. And then talked it over when we’d finally found something to eat, and both were in a better mood. After that we split up, in good spirits at least. I went to a Muji in Shinjuku and then Takeshita dori, specifically to find a new parasol, which took longer than anticipated.