WerdehausenAdventures

Green Rich Iwakuni Breakfast

Our hotel in Iwakuni includes breakfast each morning. We love when breakfast is included in our lodging because (1) less stress first thing in the morning, and (2) less money spent on breakfast means more can be budgeted for awesome dinners! Enjoy this panorama of the seating are ... I think I was caught shooting it by our table neighbor.

We brought our meal tickets downstairs, grabbed a plate and started checking out our options. We did decline the attendants offer of a tray. Later we noticed ... everyone else had trays. I think going forward ... we'll add that to our process.

The options for breakfast are mostly Japanese in style. These included fish, at least 3 different types of rice, a barbecue chicken, sausages, and a variety of vegetables.

All in all, breakfast for the next week looks satisfying and promising. We're still working out, however, the implications of our taste in coffee. The options were as follows (I've also included a close up of the relevant choice). We tested both "weak coffee" as well as the normal option. The normal option is so strong it tastes like you're eating a coffee bean. The weak option is so strong it tastes like you're drinking espresso. Either are fine when mixed into milk at a ration of 3:1 milk:coffee, plus a few packets of sugar. Perhaps coffee here in Japan is better suited to our good friend, Vance ... we're just not big enough coffee fans to handle this!

Nicoli Kitchen

Our first night in Iwakuni, we left our hotel in search of Wifey's favorite Pizza from a prior visit. We walked the 190 meters to find it closed. Apparently Monday's aren't a hopping night here in Iwakuni, and Fukuoka takes the day off.

We still wanted food and looked at a few open restaurants on our walk back home, eventually deciding to eat at another Italian option that we walked by. Our first impression was as follows:

We turned left and saw the following staircase and proceeded ahead, entering Nicoli Kitchen. The name is somewhat unfortunate for those of us (Wifey, cough cough) who came of age on Time Lahay's Left Behind Books. Wifey can't hear Nicoli without out thinking of the anti-Christ.

After going upstairs, we entered the following restaurant which reminded Wifey very strongly of a speak-easy. Light lounge music played while videos of Tom and Jerry were projected on each wall. The seating was all leather couches. We stayed and assumed we were the only customers at the time. We later saw another couple exit a private dining room part way through our meal. Regardless, it was maybe 9:00 pm and we just wanted food and to get back to our hotel.

For a sit-down, nice dining option, the presence of combo meals is always entertaining. We ended up each ordering an entree and adding on the dessert combo with a cheesecake to share.

Wifey had Margaritta Pizza. It was as expected and enjoyed by all. Hubby had Rosotto with mushrooms and some sort of meat. It was 'fine' but would not be a repeat order.

Our shared cheesecake dessert was ... tiny. We were surprised at the vanilla ice cream, berry sherbet, and granola up top when came with the tiny cheesecake though. All were tasty ... just odd.

And to finish up the meal ... after clearing our dessert dishes, we were served a small bowl containing maybe a dozen M&M's. We'll probably not repeat this dining experience, however it served its purpose to full our stomachs before bed!

final course: M&Ms

Miyajima - Japanese Culture Experience

Sunday afternoon while Wifey was blogging away our experiences to date in Hiroshima, Hubby set to finding something to do with the remainder of the evening. In the end ... Wifey blogged all night and Hubby oversaw the laundry while pursuing trip advisor and google. In doing so, Hubby did discover Okeiko Japan and booked a reservation for the following day!

Okeiko Japan is on the island of Miyajima which is not quite halfway between Hiroshima and Iwakuni, the transfer we were making today anyway! We've visited Miyajima and its famous Shrine gate on a previous trip to Japan and realized the island had far more to offer than the gate and were looking forward to a chance to spend more time there.

After our nature hike in my earlier blog, we arrived at Okeiko about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. We were greeted by four lovely ladies, one of whom spoke fantastic English and we later learned had lived in Houston Texas through college.

Okeiko means "practice" or "training", and we spent the next several hours dressing in traditional Japanese Kimono, participating in and then conducting a Tea Ceremony, a calligraphy lesson, and lastly, a cooking lesson (and yes, some yummy eating too!) We had some skilled and patient tutors for our practice.

At least we were able to read one of the two signs so we knew when we arrived at Okeiko!

First, we spent a bit of time getting dressed and then proceeded to a Tea Ceremony. First, our host showed and explained the various steps of the ceremony. It includes multiple steps including setting up and cleaning the ceremony tools, making the tea, drinking the tea, and cleaning up/rearranging the tools. Per Wiki, the Tea Ceremony involves the "ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha powdered green tea".

Sorry - Not Sorry for the photo dump .... am I being too un-humble to say they are too good to not share?!

After the tea ceremony, we proceeded to a calligraphy lesson. We began learning and practicing various strokes and then progressed to copying a chosen word. Hubby wrote the very complicated "Love" and Wifey, the much simpler head/heart/core .... which she's deeming "soul". You may notice the addition of white straps of fabric to our clothing for this lesson. These served to hold back our Kimonos and protect them from the ink.

Our inkwell and brushes ...

Our Calligraphy lesson room.

And a shout out to Wifey's parents' traditional photo posing ...

We enjoyed the opportunity to dress up in traditional Japanese attire. Wifey's outfit was far more complicated than hubbies. He got the grand opportunity to wait for her to finish getting ready. I believe, though, he said it was just like any other day. :)

Kimono belts are no joke!

Hey! Japanese styled Wifey!

Our last activity of the afternoon was a cooking lesson. We made Nigiri. Ingredients included dried fish, tuna-mayo, pickled seaweed, Umeboshi (salted plum), and greens. These were tucked inside rice shaped like a triangle and wrapped in seaweed. YUMMY!

Miyajima - Hiking and Deer

Miyajima is a city on the island of Itsukushima, just off the southern coast of Japan near Hiroshima. One thing the island is famous for is the 'wild' deer which live alongside the residents and tourists. And there are MANY tourists. Located in Mijiyama is a gate/shrine which is a destination for many visitors both Japanese and foreign. We have visited the shrine gate on a previous trip to Japan and were looking to spend time seeing what else Miyajima has to offer. We scheduled an appointment for the afternoon (look for a subsequent blog post) but had a few hours to spend walking around town (and as it turns out, out of town).

See below various pictures of the deer, and at the bottom of this post, two videos of our walk through the woods! :)