Hiroshima

Last weekend Ingrid, Mark, Misha and I flew west to Hiroshima. We were there for three days, which was plenty of time, so we got to see all the sites and the city at a very relaxed pace (read: we partied till 6 a.m. every night and didn't get up before noon).
We arrived Saturday morning but didn't get checked in to our hotel until early afternoon. After grabbing some food, Ingrid and I went to the Peace Memorial Museum. Overall I thought the museum was well done; it was haunting and sobering, and at points truly disturbing. However, the focus was solely on the Americans bombing Hiroshima, and not much other information about the war (for example, Nanking) was provided. After spending several hours at the museum we walked around the park and went to look at the A-bomb dome, which was one of the only buildings that was not raised. It has been left unrepaired and its skeleton like remains can be seen from far away and serve as a telling reminder of the destruction that occurred.
That night we went out for a "Tex-Mex" dinner and though the food was good, the portions were tiny. And although I knew better, we all ordered margaritas, but instead we got strait tequila. We all had to order orange juices to mix with our "margaritas" to make them plausibly palatable.
We cruised around the city that night, stopping in at a club (that we left once the military ratio became too great), a small GnR playing bar, and lastly, Big Echo karaoke. I was really happy because the Big Echo Karaoke establishment is the second place I've found in Japan that has Young MC's "Busta Move."
Sunday we crawled out of bed and soothed our stomachs with lots of fried stuff. Then we took the 70 minute tram and 10 minute ferry to Miya-jima island, which was once believed to actually itself be a god. The island was really picturesque, hence the floating red tori being one of the most photographed images in Japan (I think it comes right after Fuji). But the island had it all: hoards of tame deer with a penchant for paper fans, lush green mountains, and lots of old, stone lanterns.
We walked around the island for quite some time, waiting for sunset so that we could get primo pics of the tori.
Once we got back to Hiroshima we had some very bomb (sorry, bad pun) okonomiyaki, which Hiroshima is famous for because they put soba or udon noodles in it. We went to a restaurant recommended by locals and had to wait for about 45 minutes to get in, but the wait was well worth it.
That night we started out at an Amnesty party that was winding down by the time we arrived, but we did get to see the bartender do some crazy bottle juggling that put Tom Cruise to shame. Then we went to a costume bar, but no one was in costume, in fact there were only 2 other people in the bar, so we wound up getting those people and the bartender to play drinking games with us.
Monday we checked out 2 hours late. It was too hot and we were too hung-over to do much so we went to go see "Batman Begins", which was totally awesome. Like, I actually yelled out "Holy shit this rocks!" at one point during the movie. After we shopped around and I spent 2000-yen on parts of socks (no, not even a whole pair), but the pieces I bought are super cool.