Japan 2008 - Iwakuni - Day 6
Iwakuni was the destination of the day. Iwakuni is about 1 hour outside of Hiroshima via local train. Home to MCAS Iwakuni, it also is the home of a unique ribbon bridge called Kintai-Kyo. 5 sections long (to represent the 5 main islands in Japan) it is a beautiful bridge that spans approx 193 meters across the river. However, due to the design of the bridge, if you walk across it, you actually end up walking about 210 meters. It’s considered one of the 3 most beautiful bridges in Japan, and is the only 5 span bridge of its type in the world. Interestingly enough, though the bridge was designed in 1673, it conforms to modern engineering and design principles. There was a bit of misinformation about the bridge being built without nails, but nails and such were used in its construction.
A view of the construction under one of the spans:
Walking across the bridge.
A statue in the park after you cross the bridge. Unfortunately I forget who the statue is for, though I would guess it is for Kikkawa Tsuneie, who is famous in the area. The story goes that when Toyotomi Hideyoshi was conquering the area for Oda Nobunaga, he had this area surrounded and had cut off all the supplies to the area. With his people suffering, Tsuneie surrendered to Hideyoshi, and in exchange for his life he asked that Hideyoshi spare his people. Tsuneie then performed the ritual seppuku or hara-kiri. The statue was raised in honor of his sacrifice many years later.
Some fountains in the park behind the bridge. It was very hot, so some of the local kids were running through the fountains cooling off. I should have joined them!
Since it’s summer time here, there are cicadas all over Japan singing their song. It’s a unique sound, from a fairly unique bug. This one was captured by a small child who was off playing in the fountains in the park near the bridge. Unfortunately for this one, shortly after I took these pictures, a local cat wandered by and had it for lunch.
One of the food specialties for Hiroshima is a unique dish called “Okonomiyaki.” It’s really hard to describe. It is composed of several layers starting with a very thin crepe-like base, piled high with cabbage, bean sprouts, bacon, and other toppings, then grilled down and covered with seasonings, an egg and a special sauce. It sounds weird, but it’s tastes absolutely wonderful. Available with several kinds of add-ins ranging from shrimp to squid, noodles or even mochi (Japanese pounded rice cakes). This is something I’m going to have to try to reverse-engineer the recipe for. We went to an okonomiyaki restaurant where you could watch yours being made right in front of you on a big flat grill (like they use at Benihana-type teppan-yaki restaurants). I watched carefully as the chef prepared mine, and several others, but there were some of the ingredients I’ll have to guess at. Often there was a sprinkle of this, or a shake of that added, or a splash of something, but I have no idea what the actual ingredients were. Things like the crepe base, and the sauce are actually available stateside now, but there’s still quite a bit of experimentation to do to get the seasoning right. I suspect I won’t have a lack of volunteers to try my creations though.