Daily Archives: June 6, 2011

Paradise Awaits

The sunken city of R’lyeh

The shinkansen arrived at Hiroshima station sometime after 11, and having checked the itinerary to the assigned location beforehand I chose to trek the remaining 2 kilometers instead of looking for the right train. With all my luggage, feeling like a heavy weapons guy was unavoidable.

My observations from two years ago were still valid; Hiroshima is a rare Japanese city where one can actually find something similar to espace verts, and in addition, the streets are wide and pleasantly organized. The initial joy I drew from the physical aspects of the city was quickly lost as I realized that the internet at my special outpost was non-functional. One conbini lunch and a lot of cursing later, I managed to get everything connected and was actually able to begin working. Besides the challenging start, the rest of the day at the empty office was dull and uneventful.

Wide Island

After checking in at ANA Crowne Plaza and checking out the gym thereof, I opted to try the casual dining buffet of the hotel. It was very reasonably priced at ¥3000. A well kept secret among westerners with a huge appetite is that the energy & micronutrient / yen ratio is always superior at a tabehoudai or buffet, given that the stomach capacity of the attendee exceeds a certain level. There is a very complicated mathematical formula for choosing the optimal place to eat, but tonight I clearly made the right choice.

Truth be told, since solving the internet issue at the makeshift embassy right after my arrival, I’ve been all smiles. Smiles, that, once again, I have utterly failed to conceal. I was grinning to the elevator mirror on the way to the restaurant before noticing the security camera watching me. Someone at the other end had probably already began suspecting that the Joker was still alive.

There's wild Pokémon in the tall grass!

Quand l’appétit va, tout va!

When in a hotel, do as the rich people do. Eat. And never stop. All things considered, the buffet was sublime. I began with several servings of different salads and cold entrees, after which I quickly discovered a huge bloc of parmesan cheese and a young chef grilling sasebo style steaks in a corner where nobody dared venture. Don’t ask me what a sasebo style steak is, I have no idea. But it was delicious. I didn’t initially believe my luck so I needed to confirm with the chef whether these really were part of the buffet menu. His nonchalant answer allowed all hell to break loose.

Relinquishing all sense of shame I returned to the steak counter 4 times and tried most of the other foods in between these cherished beef moments: hakata gyoza, crab korokke, beef tendon, shrimp sushi, roasted chicken, horse mackerel, mozzarella tomatoes. This is really beginning to resemble the diary of a hedonist, which it is. I felt like going on forever but decided to quit while I was ahead and chose one funny looking piece of green tea spongecake along with a dangerously large espresso to close the deal. My only cause of distress was that I left my phone and only camera in my room on purpose, thinking “I’m just gonna eat, no point to immortalize anything”. How wrong I was. I would label the whole evening as epic if it didn’t involve paying the jar. And tomorrow’s dinner venue calls the kimeta rule function.

-Obélix

Hiroshima へ

Morning of the Journey

Waking up at 5 am is rarely a treat, yet this particular dawn it all felt like a necessary evil that would prove well worth my while in the long run. Or even the immediate run, depending on your perception of time. Not even staying up until 3 watching the 4th season of the Big Bang Theory could have deterred me from jumping up unprompted at the first rays of sunlight to scavenge the fridge for anything of value in order to prepare me for the long train ride ahead. This great nutritional treasure hunt included two packs of natto and the humble remains of the only reasonably priced full fat yoghurt I’ve ever found in the land of the rising sun. Also coffee and butter. Don’t ask.

The streets were relatively quiet at that ungodly hour, but similarly to last week’s Tsukiji visit, both the Seibu Line and Yamanote Line consisted of man’in densha from as early as 6 in the morning, an epiphany that made me cringe, though silently. At Shinagawa after buying the shinkansen ticket, I noticed that the potassium iodide pills from April had completely disintegrated inside my wallet, forming something not completely unlike cocaine both in color and texture. I should know, I have cocaine in my wallet all the time. The remnants of the pills had to be disposed of, rendering me vulnerable once again to the exaggeratedly deadly winds of Fukushima. A few moments later I boarded the train while making sure to avoid the smoking car, a skill I had learned through trial and error a few years earlier. Nothing compares to paying ¥18000 for a 4-hour smoke-in-your-face experience.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Nozomi shinkansen bound for Hakata.

To be perfectly honest, it only took the sentence above to divert my thoughts from the original target city and contemplate continuing all the way to Hakata, Kyushu, in order to sample the eponymous thin noodle tonkotsu broth ramen in its natural habitat. And not only for the ramen, either. It turns out that despite having lived in different parts of Japan for well over a year in total I still haven’t set foot outside of Honshu. Luckily, the responsible side of my brain, which is noticeably small, was able to stay in control. Thus, I soon relented and continued the journey to Hiroshima as planned. Old MUCC songs collected from my ex-roommate as well as the more recent Fairy Tail soundtrack kept me company.

Camaraderie, adventure and steel on steel. Or rather, EMIT on control point.

In non-local news, there is now less than a fortnight left before the traditional Jukola orienteering event and I am currently gathering anxiety in relation to the fact that I’m unable to attend possibly one of the most legendary sports events of (not) my life. Marko has been able to whip the team into shape and get people to commit at a level I could never have dreamed of, so clearly there is much to yearn for. Hopefully the deer in Miyajima will help me overcome this loss. I hereby refer everybody to the valiant adventures of Team HeiaHeia.com, the most versatile tongue-in-cheek yorozuya sports team in the world.

-Antti