Hey Hive!
If you missed the last few posts, we're recounting our trip to Hiroshima back in April 2019! Sean had won some free air tickets to Hiroshima from a lucky draw sponsored by one of the local banks in Singapore, DBS! Since we've never been, we decided that was a good chance to explore the Chūgoku region!
So last week, we completed our day trip to Rabbit Island, aka Ōkunoshim, which is a lone island off the coast of Hiroshima home to over a thousand wild rabbits! We spent our time there exploring the island and feeding many of the local "residents"!
It was so cool seeing all the wild rabbits roaming about freely, but after knowing a little bit of the history behind this island (i.e. that they had poison gas factories here used during wartime) it seems sad. Thankfully, the rabbits here are safe and happy! I hope they're still doing okay in these covid times though.
14 April 2019. Sunday.
But anyway, after that long day at Rabbit Island, we were down to our final day in Hiroshima before the end of our trip! So we just wanted to chill and maybe do some last minute shopping for souvenirs before going back.
First, we went to have lunch at one of our favourite steak places, Ikinari Steak! I've actually written about this place in my Foodie series, TacoCat's TrEats, a long long time ago which you can check out here! I think this was actually the first time we ate at this restaurant franchise. We were just walking down the street when we came across this little steak restaurant that was in almost full Japanese.
But it did smell really good, and we hadn't had steak the whole trip so we figured it was now or never!
This particular outlet was pretty small and cramped and there was limited seating but thankfully we found the place after peak lunch hours. It was mostly bar seats though and it fit the concept of Ikinari Steak since it roughly translates to “Sudden Steak”, which basically means it's a no frills, express type of meal.
Most of their outlets are standing room only since you're just supposed to eat your steak quickly and leave. This is not the type of place to sit down and enjoy your steak, but rather the opposite. I guess the idea is to make it so that busy professionals can still enjoy a steak meal even on their lunch hour. Thankfully though this place did have seats.
And even though we love steak, we don't have the luxury to eat it very often and are not meat experts by any sense. But they did provide these helpful instructions for their special Wild Steak:
So we ordered 1 portion of the Wild Steak and it came with a side of corn and a dollop of their special butter sauce:
We also tried the sirloin steak which came with onions too:
We were also given special bibs to wear so the steak sauce wouldn't get on our clothes!
The steak was soo good; probably one of the best we've ever had! Granted, we don't have steak that often unless we're abroad, but it was so tender and juicy! The Wild Steak was a little chewier but the sirloin was superb! They do have different types of meat from their menu so you can choose from fillets to ribeye and hamburg.
It's kinda pricey but considering the quality and the taste I'd say it's pretty standard for steak. And it was cooked to perfection so well worth it!
After that very satisfying meal, we went to walk around some more in search of a special event! We came across a poster the other day that showed some Ace Attorney event during that time and were pretty curious as to what it entailed since we're both Ace Attorney fans!
It was all in Japanese but turns out it's actually kind of like an escape room? It was setup in this random place that I guess was kind of like a local community center. But there was also some merchandise and even standees of my favourite character, Phoenix Wright!
If you're unfamiliar, Ace Attorney is a video game series where you play as a defense lawyer and solve cases while trying to defend your client! There are a bunch of eccentric characters in the series but it's really well-written and although the cases can get pretty ridiculous, the story itself is really engaging.
It's probably one of my favourite series of all time, and we're always in search for Ace Attorney merchandise but had no luck in the manga and anime stores we visited.
But here they had a whole stand of merch! It wasn't a lot, but it was still really cool to actually see these in person!
These keychains looked pretty cute, but tbh I wasn't a big fan of the chibi style for Phoenix. Especially how they made his hair grey for some reason.
There were also Godot coffee packets and mugs (since that character has a thing with coffee in the game)! I thought it was so cool!
There were also folders and stickers and buttons!
I think I wanted to get the button badge or something but we were told it was a gachapon (i.e. like a random blind box) and I think I ended up getting the worst one! I would've been happy with anything else except the one with the bald guy and of course that was the one that I got.. I swear that was rigged.
We didn't really bother going into the escape room since we were told it was all in Japanese but we could hear a lot of dialogue over the PA system and it did sound fun! Pretty unfortunate that we couldn't participate though.
So we after that we went to go play some games at the arcade instead! Look at Sean trying to pretend like he won when I got first place! xD
We also went to a pet store to see some cute doggos before leaving and came across this adorable pupper!
And this lil shiba who looks so cute!
I just wanted to hug and cuddle all of them!
While going to buy some souvenirs and stock up on cosmetics and electronics, we took some goofy photos like Sean and his main in Smash Bros.:
And to end off the day we had a dinner at this random ramen restaurant we came across on the street! Unlike the steak though this one was pretty meh. It was called Toripaiten Ramen and apparently it originated from Taiwan? I think I had their regular tonkotsu ramen:
While Sean tried their mazesoba:
I think both were kinda meh; not bad but not great. Just pretty average I guess. It was a hearty meal though and I was full after all that soup.
On the way back to our apartment, we stopped by Mister Donut to get some dessert! Sean told me their donuts were actually really good so he insisted we get at least one so I could try it!
I think I forgot to take a picture of the actual donut but it was indeed really yummy and soft! I would've liked it if it was a little more crisp on the outside but it was yummy all the same!
15 April 2019. Monday.
The next day our flight was at noon so we had to leave the apartment pretty early. We didn't want to have to drag our luggage to the train station so we took a shuttle to the airport instead!
It cost a little extra, but for the time saved and the convenience I think it was well worth it. And this way we could relax on the way there too, while enjoying the morning scenery!
We ended up arriving at the airport at 9am! Our flight wouldn't be for a couple hours so we had some time to kill.
There was a huge mural of the Itsukushima Shrine that we went to and a sculpture of a Torii gate made out of paper mache at the airport that looked really cool!
Since we had some time, it gave us a chance to explore the Hiroshima Airport, although there wasn't much to look at tbh. The gift shop did have these local specialties - the maple momiji manju, which is a snack made of wheat dough filled with various flavours. And since Hiroshima is known for their maple leaves, maple syrup fits perfectly!
We were getting hungry so we wanted to have some breakfast but there wasn't many options for food except this little cafe with a couple of breakfast items. They didn't have much either so we just got this garlic bread set with sausages, salad and a soft boiled egg and a cup of lemon tea.
We just relaxed after that and before we knew it it was time to board!
Thankfully there was also lunch served on the plane so we got more food which included chicken baked rice and a pandan chiffon cake for dessert! It was actually quite yummy!
Sean got the teriyaki chicken rice which was pretty good too!
But it was time to say goodbye to Japan once more! We're always sad to leave but we really enjoyed our trip!
This was our first time visiting Hiroshima and we got to experience quite a few new things and visit a few special places like Kintaikyo Bridge (the curviest bridge ever), Miyajima the Shine island and of course Rabbit Island! And we got to eat plenty of delicious food as well, which is always a plus!
I can't believe that trip was more than 2 years ago now! It seems like such a long time since we've traveled. But there are still more trips to cover and of course more stuff we did locally during covid times so there's always stuff to write about!
My next trip was actually to Japan once again, but under.. special circumstances. Tune in next week for yet another new adventure!
Thanks so much for reading and hope you enjoyed going on this journey with me!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #159 (Hiroshima): Feeding the Locals on Rabbit Island! 🐇