Hiroshima take 2

So a really good part of being here for a second year means that I can go on and enjoy trips that I took last year. The first of the second trip (the first of many I hope) came in the form of the Sake Festival in Hiroshima. Now I won't go into too much detail about the festival as I wrote about it last year, but I'll just give the brief/key points.
This year (because I went last year) myself and Natasha, Dani and Todd decided to make a road trip out of this so that we could see and explore other places besides Hiroshima. Natasha was especially keen to do this as this would be her fourth year in Hiroshima so she felt that she had seen and done all there was to see and do multiple times. So our itinerary for this trip was to drive to Hiroshima on the Saturday (thanks to Dani for making it a short drive of 3 hours), then drive to Okayama on the Sunday, and finish the trip off by checking out Kurashiki on the way back to Tokushima on Monday.

yum!

So Saturday was great! We got to the hostel in great time and managed to snag a parking space next to the building. We then changed into our custom drawn sake fest tops before heading out for some lunch which came in the form of Hiroshimayaki - Hiroshima's version of okonomiyaki. Delicious! Then it was off to the train station and on to the sake festival.
Ok so a quick review of sake fest for you. You turn up and pay 1800yen and receive a sake cup in return. Then you get let into the arena which is surrounded by stalls pouring out different types of sake from all over Japan.

Ready. Go!

The best part of sake fest is the jovial and friendly atmosphere. With the help of a little (or a lot of) dutch courage, the language barriers break down and you find yourself 'talking'

custom tees for the occasion!

to anyone and everyone sharing jokes, photo shoots and sake recommendations! This year, like last year, we wore white shirts which we encouraged people to write on. Their main purpose was to record the numbers of the sake we tried (and the next day helped us to see how much we consumed the day before!), but above all they were great conversation starters and ice-breakers.What is so great about this trip is that it is really popular amongst the JET community, and we always get a great number come up from Tokushima, so even if you wander away from your group, you're never far away from a friend! Anyway, needless to say many people had one too many but it was a really fantastic day and I would highly recommend this festival to anyone visiting Japan around this time.

never far from a group of friends!

getting new friends to add to the tshirts!

making new friends - despite the language barrier!

having fun with the warriors!

Ok so feeling slightly worse for wear on Sunday, our group left all our other lovely JET friends to explore Hiroshima and headed off to Okayama. We got the hotel, dropped off our bags and headed straight for Okayama castle. The castle is famous for its black exterior - a rarity with Japanese castles. And it certainly made for an impressive sight. There were a couple of men dressed up as warriors outside so that was fun getting our pictures taken with them, and obviously they enjoyed milking it with the foreigners! Then we went in and looked around the castle (not worth the money in my opinion!) and by that time is was time to head quickly to the station for the main planned event of the day - a tour around the Kirin Beer Factory.

yummy frozen headed beer!

Actually we left it a little late and (with the terrible timings of the trains) realised that we weren't going to make our 3pm tour. Dani bravely phoned to them them know, and instead of saying 'that's too bad, maybe next time.' we were told that if we caught the next train, a car would pick us up from the station and we could make the 3:30 tour. So we did, and it was brilliant! Unfortunately the tour was only in Japanese, but as the tour guide knew we were coming, she made the effort to translate her commentary into English! So cute! This is why I love Japan. So the tour, although short, was very interesting and finished with 20 minutes of taste testing! Yum! We were all given our first beer which had frozen head on top, delicious! We also got to try their newest beer - a beer without barley in it! Actually it wasn't great and I was glad they only gave us a small sample. Along with our beer we were also given a little bag of crackers and some beer chocolate! It doesn't sound great but the mixture of dark chocolate with a beer jelly filling was delicious! Afterwards we all made sure to buy a box of the chocolates as souvenirs. One of the best parts of the trip? It was free! We couldn't believe it. It was such a nice surprise and we all fest very cheerful and content when we left (that had nothing to do with the beer!).

private pick-up!

progression of the cans

All our goodies!

Then it was back to the hotel to check in and chill out for a bit as we had been on our feet all day. For dinner we headed to an izakaya and then stopped for a drink at an American style bar/diner (I had a banana milkshake - so hard-core!). Then we headed back to the hotel and to sleeeeeep.
Ok so our last day started with a rather nice all-you-can eat breakfast. Then we drive back to the castle from the day before but this time we went into the castle's garden, Korakuen, to explore for a little while (definitely worth the money). Usually with gardens I get a bit bored after 20 minutes or so. It gets to the point where I think 'ok, this is a very pretty bridge, but it's more or less the same as the bridge I saw earlier.' However, with this garden, just when I started to think that I'd seen it all, I would turn the corner and find something new and even more beautiful than the last thing to look at. The photos don't really do it justice but this was by far the most spectacular and beautiful garden I have even seen!

After about an hour we came to the end, got back into the car and hit the road headed to the last stop of our trip - the town of Kurashiki.

Kurashiki had such a pretty area in it - a canal going through the middle of a picturesque town scape. A big reason we wanted to go to Kurashiki was because of the daily boat rides up and down the canal. Unfortunately, by the time we went to book a spot, there was only one space left. We all agreed to let Natasha take the spot as she was the one most looking forward to it. We had great fun strolling up and down the canal taking photos of Natasha as she sat in the boat with her little hat on her head! The rest of the trip was spent meandering around and in and out of the little side streets, dropping into quirky little shops that caught our eye. I didn't buy anything but I did have a wonderful time taking in the sites of this quaint place.

nice hat Tasha!

Then it was back to the car and homeward bound to Tokushima. What a fantastic weekend with perfect weather throughout. Thanks goes to Dani who drove the entire weekend (I definitely wouldn't have been able to drive on Sunday morning!) - she delivered us quickly and safely to all our destinations and enabled our trip to go that much more smoothly.
Perfect!