広島の旅程:最初の日

This is really one of the best trips I have ever had in my own life. I have never played so hard in a span of 4 days. Thanks to all the great people who have made this trip so wonderful:)

As so many beautiful memories have been created over the last 4 days, I will be writing 3 blog entries to capture as much of the details of the fun and crazy moments of the trip. And this would be the 1st entry on the trilogy series:

On 4th May, a sunny friday afternoon, a group of international exchange students were waiting eagerly for their Japanese tea ceremony class to end. Their luggages, lying at one small corner of the room, were beckoning to them on to the fun and excitement that they would soon have in Hiroshima.

The Sensei, who was informed about the Hiroshima trip, kindly postponed the midterm and let the students off early on that day. And off the students went to the Cafeteria to grab some food before embarking on the 5 hours bus/ferry ride to Hiroshima.

At 1.15pm, the students arrived at Kitahara, the boarding place for the long distance bus to Hiroshima. Overflowing with exuberance, they gleefully took a memorable photo to mark the start of the trip.
And out of the corner of his eye, Thor spotted 3 beautiful ladies peeking surreptitiously at the group from the ATM machines.

"Hey, are they not Mariel, Arienne and Paivi? What are they doing here?"

Thor approached the 3 girls and discovered that they were thinking of going another city for a weekend getaway, but the GODDAMN ATM was not working! And to Thor's incredulity, he learnt that ATM in Japan only works for a specific hours during the day: ATM in Japan does not operate for 24 hours! Then what's a ATM for??? Does ATM in Japan need to rest, like a human being does? Thor was deeply disturbed.

As a result of the unexpected working hours of ATM, the poor girls were left stranded in the godforsaken Beppu City, which has only one shopping centre and the shopping centre is only half the size of Jurong Point in Singapore.

Being a compassionate SNAG, Thor wept for the unfortunate trio from the bottom of his heart.

Anyway, the girls bidded a tearful goodbye to the group of 14 exchange students who were going to have the fun of their lifes.

(Story writing ends here. Too troublesome... From now on, Singlish liaoz!)

Anyway, we boarded the comfortable JR bus, which brought us to a ferry harbour. There we changed the mode of transport to the ferry for 2 hours. And this is my first time on a ferry in the Japan sea. Damn shiok lah. The ferry even got Tatami mat for the passengers to sleep on. But the group of us spent most of our time on the deck, embracing the sea view and mellifluous breeze.

Group pic of the Singapore gang:

Pic of Jenelle and Mic traumatizing the Japanese kids:

Beautiful seaview from the ferry:
When we arrived at Hiroshima, it was already 7pm. As Friday was the golden week in Japan, we could not find accomodation. Hence, we were finding the Billy the Kid Karaoke, where we would sing all the way from 12am to 7pm for 1600 yen (20 bucks).

Pic of the group pic in Hiroshima:

Luckily for Kyoko's ability to communicate in Japanese and Weili's great sense of direction, we effortlessly arrived at Billy the Kid. We made the reservation and with a big group of 14 people, we unwillingly splitted out to find our own dinners.

And David, Atle and I went to this small Okonomiyaki stall to try the famous Hiroshima Okonomiyaki (also known as Hiroshimayaki). 確かに、お好み焼きなら、広島と大阪のに限る。(Indeed, if you were talking about Okonomiyaki, Hiroshima's and Osaka's are the best)

Basic Okonomiyaki with Soba, meat, egg and Veg:

Pic of David and Atle waiting eagerly for the Okonomiyaki: And after dinner, with a stroke of luck, we chanced upon this cheap お風呂 at the end of the small street. The thing about the Karaoke is that they do not have a place for us to shower and clean ourselves up. So the 広島の名湯 was really the thing we needed to freshen ourselves up.

360 yen for shower, お風呂 (public bath), 薬風呂 (herbal bath)、and ソウナ (sauna)。全く信じられない！

And at 12am, we went into Karaoke, and we sang and drank till the wee hours of the night. I was overwhelmed by the Z monster at around 5am, but there were a few brave warriors who managed to tahan all the way until 7am. Bravo to Weili, Jenelle, Kyoko, Nadia, Atle, Kai, Adam and Rosanna!

Pic of the refreshed APU gang in the next morning:

Okay, ここまで終わります。Wait for the 2nd part of the trilogy:)