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(My laptop keyboard is crapping out on me, so this entry is going to be a bit more brief than I'd like. Thankfully I know how to remap keys.)

After walking all around Kyoto, I figured a day of relative rest was in order, so the next day we went to Himeji to see...

Himeji castle

While the castle itself is about 10 minutes walk from the station, we took a cab because we were all getting blisters from walking so much. And as it turned out, the cabbie was quite a chatty fellow once he figured out I spoke the lingo. He pointed out a couple restaurants before dropping us off at the back entrance to the castle (as close as one could get by car). The cherry trees weren't quite in bloom yet, which was a bit disappointing. Mom complained about going up into the tower but I think she had fun overall.

Back by the hotel in Kyoto, I bought a bag of donuts from Mister Donut. Apparently it was a MAGICAL bag of donuts.

The amazing levitating donut bag

Next day was a trip all the way out to Hiroshima. Normally this would be like taking a trip to Los Angeles from San Diego, but since Mom and Dad had JR passes it didn't wind up costing that much. The standard peace museum was part of the tour, but I always love going to Miyajima for the oysters and the view.

Pagoda, building, and a cherry tree

Dad and I decided to ride the cable car up to the top of Miyajima, so we paid the expensive ticket prices and hopped on. In reality, the ropeway system is a pair of lifts, one which takes you most of the way up the mountain to a minor peak and the other which takes you from there across a yawning gorge to the very top. As fate would have it, the second lift broke down just as we hopped on, stranding us at the bottom. The attendant stamped our tickets for a refund and told us that he'd never heard of this lift breaking down before. He then started up a narrow steep maintenance trail to meet up with the people stuck at the top. And of course, we followed.

Halfway up we stopped on a ridge with a breathtaking near-360 panorama of the entire island. This is what we saw:

A rare sight, indeed

After about 5 minutes the adventurers from the top met us and we returned to the first lift, where I chatted with some ladies who had come up on holiday. They were very impressed with Dad's photos of the waterfall in northern Arizona, which he had forgotten to delete from his camera.

I bought some gifts and some snack food, one of which was the spicy rice cracker from hell. I ate about half of it, and gave the other half to a couple college students we met on the trolley back into town. One was a local, and once he was finished gasping for water, he gave us some great advice on where to go for some good okonomiyaki. It turned out to be a part of town very much like Kokubuncho in Sendai, with little side alleys to get lost in. I believe I had some from a different restaurant on the same street when I went there before.