We stayed at the Kobe Plaza HotelFinal look at the room we successfully trashedThis is the microwave I had to use to heat up the cold vending machine coffees in the hotel… have you ever seen a microwave with no numeric keypad??? I basically hit buttons at random until something happened hahaWe checked out of the hotel and had breakfast somewhere which had their own smoking box right in the restaurant lol then we took the Kobe subway two stops to the Shin-Kobe station to catch our trainFinally learned why Matt’s allergies were going off so muchBack at the Kobe Shinkansen station awaiting our bullet train to Hiroshima, the whole station has a pleasant outdoor vibe to itThis ridiculous animated globe greats everyone lolIt was too early to check in to our hotel so they stored our bags for usAnd so we were on the prowl for lunchNot sure how but Robert led us to where we had eaten lunch in 2023! It was so cool to have Matt with us this time!
The lunch here is hard to explain, basically lots of layers & sauces and the whole thing cooks down pretty flat. Very tasty!
It’s been a reoccurring theme during the trip, noticing that tourism is up sharply since the last visit in 2023. When we were in Hiroshima the last time, we stuck out so much that the locals stared at us all through lunch. Today, the people next to us in this tiny restaurant were Canadians and a couple others were tourists as well, the difference over three years is honestly pretty crazy.
The back of the restaurant
After lunch we headed to the Peace Park… this view always hits pretty hard. We heard a young American voice exclaim, “wow what happened to that?” And the reply, “somebody nuked it.” Honestly I prefer it when I can’t understand what people are saying…
OMG behind that hedge, a giant fiddler crab is rearing up!!!!!Then we hiked over to the big fortressIt’s an imposing structure, though rebuilt for obvious reasonsMmmmmm maybe for dinner?What plants are those supposed to be exactly?Wiring down here is very southeast Asia lolMade it back to our hotel, naturally we were back on the seventh floorFound another of these crazy stores hahaAnd somehow purely by chance we walked right by our scary oyster place from 2023!!Most of the walkways have these handy little histograms below the human figure… on the left, you can see that the two vertical lines are pretty tall, meaning we have a long time still to wait. On the right, the lines have almost disappeared, meaning it’ll be our turn to walk soon.
And before you know it, it’s time to head to dinner. The restaurant is called Waygu Labs, and there is a fascinating story behind it: the chef was upset that the local area around Hiroshima had no beef herds of renown, and so he took it upon himself to create one! He went and acquired cows from the various famous herds of Japanese beef and began interbreeding them to create a new local famous variety. I’d say he’s off to a great start!
One annoying thing about Hiroshima is that there is no subway! So you have to choose busses or trolleys, and on the map the lines are all maddingly intermingled… Google Maps wanted us to take a bus, we thought it wanted the trolley, it was really confusing and we arrived to the restaurant late… Robert somehow managed to shoot them a text, so our reservation was saved!I got a huge kick out of that guy’s shirt lolAnd in any case, we got lots of steps in!This is the unassuming front of Waygu LabsInside it did look a bit like a crazy lab, with giant black fan intakes positioned over every stationThe genetically modified beef was amazingly good!As in, melt-in-your-mouth goodHe even made us a “Big Mac” 😀And the rest of it lol the noodle course, the curry course, and fruit & green tea: what another fantastic dinner!I don’t know how he did it but Robert found our favorite bar here from 2023. It was great fun to see again but unfortunately our fav bar guy wasn’t in….The good news is that things are still pretty Asian around here 😀
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