Day 9 - Hiroshima

All women jazz band in Hon Dori

Again, we had breakfast in room, western style food. Yuko and Gorou were working so we used the day to explore more of Hiroshima.

Hon Dori shopping arcade

It was drizzling rain, so we went to Hon Dori shopping arcade, for some window shopping and to stay out of the rain. For lunch we went to an interesting restaurant where you could select small individual items, a bit like the now popular sushi trains restaurants, but with a greater variety of dishes.

Shop display of action figures at
Hon Dori

Hon Dori has many small specialist shops selling almost anything portable, pretty similar to the Teramachi area in Kyoto. Frances and I would split up at various times to look at the things that interested us, then meet up again and exchange information.

The building with the many small
bar/restaurants on the street level -
closed during the day

That evening we went looking for somewhere local to eat. Something that we had not encountered before was a number of small bar/restaurants on the ground floor of a large old building near the railway station. They were almost all run by a one to two of people, contained at most seating for about 10 people, and had very limited, but specialised menus - all in Japanese. We picked one that appeared to do a sort of BBQ style and attempted to order. The best we could do was to point at dishes other people were having and indicate we'd have the same.

Eating raw beef liver
Photo: Japan Times

This establishment specialised in BBQ beef - yaki-niku. For each order, the chef/owner would take some meat from a little bar fridge, slice it up and cook it. I tried in vain to order some vegetables and rice, but there was nothing else on the menu except beef. A charming young couple who were sitting next to us insisted we try some of their sliced raw liver which has now been banned. Frances declined, but I tried some, well soaked in the accompanying dipping sauce. It wasn't too bad, but not something I'd be too keen to try again. The overall experience was great though and everyone we met was very friendly. We ended up drinking our last bottle of red wine with the owner and another diner who was an obvious regular!