Chicken Shack!

So after the beach on Sunday we decided to go to the Chicken Shack. The map makes it look like it's just up the road, but it's through the mountains and everything! Oh ya, and I don't know if I've told very many people but they don't do street names here. So you have to go by landmarks, they only name major highways and the freeway. So we turn on the road and are going up a dark road and we're not sure where it was on the road, then we see bright lights and this is what we come upon!



I had no idea that this was going to be so fancy and cool! I mean chicken shack doesn't sound like it's going to be very impressive right?

Here are our pictures of us being like Samurai soldiers or something.

So you go down a little walkway and come upon this cool eating area, you can eat outside or inside. We decided outside because you can grill your food and it gets smokey, and it's just so cool outside! So this is the area that we ate at. Pictures just can't do it justice. There is just so much to take in and cool lights and colors all around you.

So our waitress knew English very well and she handed us an English menu and this is like the first thing that I read. We all started to laugh and not talk about it since we remembered that she spoke English, so I asked her what is was and she laughed. She was like, "no, it's not what you think, it's not a actual Jew Ear!" She knew we were laughing about it and it was funny.






So our friend Ben decided to order it. Here is a picture of it. The waitress tried to describe it as like a vegetable, like a mushroom or something.




So I tried the Jew Ear! It was actually pretty good. It's really spicy and crunchy, not what I was expecting since I don't like mushrooms and that's what she said it was like.

For dinner we got chicken on a stick, which the chicken shack is know for, gyoza which was awesome we ordered more and some rice. They don't really do fried rice here, I like it better but I guess I'll get used to it.Chowing down on my chicken, you can choose dark or white meat so that was nice. The chicken tasted so good! I think Ryan wants to take his Marines out there next Saturday. This is definitely a place we will take anyone who comes to visit us! Oh ya, most of the places we have ate, you have to sit on your butt, which your legs go numb so you have to lounge out.

Yu Beach

This is Yu beach just about 20min down the road from base. It's only like 10miles maybe, but since the speed limit is low and the stop lights are really long it can take long to get there. But we went the this last Sunday just to hang out. It's getting hotter here as it gets closer to August, so we'll probably be there more during the weekends. It was a really nice facility though, clean bathrooms(american toilets) and showers and always vending machines and snow cones! Such a nice beach, this was later in the day, about 6pm so it really cleared out, but it wasn't crazy there though like it got in San Diego.

My cutie pie!

Gotta love Ryan's nice tan lines! I know, don't let him blind you with his whiteness, we're working on it. You can see his small pox shot on his shoulder there. We think it's not contagious anymore since it's been a little over a month. I'm debating whether or not to show the pictures of the shot while it was active, it was really nasty!


The water was so nice to get into. It is chilly but once you get in all the way you get used to it. But it's really clean, we need to get some floaty chairs so we can just chill out there. Again (pooch) I'm getting a tan!

Ben and Tish again, I had her take a picture of us in the water and she took it back and took these pictures.

Our friends Bonnie and Dan.

Miyajima Island

Okay, so last Saturday we went to Miyajima Island which was about a 20min train ride up north, just right next to Hiroshima. It's a really cool island that has a lot of cultural stuff and a hike up the mountain. And this is a MAJOR picture post and it's taken me days to do this because it takes forever to put pictures on, so the pictures are out of order! The end should really be the beginning.

So this is at Omoto Park at the end of our hike down, which we thought we'd never get through, and of course there's deer everywhere and Ryan starts to feed some little deer some sunflower seeds and then this big guy come with a full rack of antlers and starts to nudge him with them! The deer was getting mad because Ryan didn't open the sunflower seeds enough to get any through so it was taking awhile. And when you get off the ferry to get here they tell you to watch out for the antlered deer because they might hurt you! So Ryan dumped a whole bunch on the ground and we ran away because they tried to follow us!

Us at the rope way drop off observatory. I hope you all(pooch) notice that I am getting a tan!

I think this is like a special smoke house where they have a continuous flame or something like that all the time. This is just below the highest point.

A cool little shrine thingy. You see these a lot, you may not be able to see in this picture but they also like to stack rocks from bigger to smaller on the shrine too, probably like a prayer thing.

We were so tired from hiking up and then we had to hold this freakin rock! Man is was a rough one! This is almost to the top!

These are the rock formations that we walked through up to the top.
Nice view of HiroshimaUs at the highest point! We are sweating so bad, and it was even worse when we got back down. Our clothes were literally soaking wet, Ryan had brought another dry shirt in anticipation!

Ryan as a little Monk guy.



Us as little Japanese monkeys going on up the rope way! Unfortunately we didn't see any wild monkeys up there so we'll have to go back.

I think this is the right picture to show what we hiked. The first peak on the left is the area that the rope way brings you, then you have to hike over the the tallest peak where they have an observatory. Then because we went up too late we had to hike the long way down because the short way was still under construction from the damage of the typhoon that came through from when Ryan was here in 2005. It took us about an hour and a half to walk down like 2miles worth of stairs. I'm going on my 4th day from the hike and my calfs are still so sore!

A view from the ride up. It goes slow so you can get a good look around and be grateful you didn't decide to hike up it.

A nice view of the city across the bay, which might be the beginnings of Hiroshima just on the right.

This is a picture of us at our new house! Everyone here lives in Pagodas! Oh ya, we have ice cream in our hand. I'll have to take a picture but there are ALWAYS vending machine for anything cold/hot to drink and ice cream.

This is the Homotsukan(treasure hall) . It has the Heike Clan's Buddhist sutras, the treasures of the Itsukushima Shrine were dedicated by members of the clan as prayers for their prosperity.

Reese this is for you! There was a store there that was dedicated for Hello Kitty! I even took a picture with her! You see Hello Kitty everywhere, they even make her into action hero's, ninjas, a soccer player, a baseball player and a dancer! I'll have to figure out how to spell Reese in Japanese because you could get a lot of stuff with your name on it. That bag in my had might even have something for you!

So this is the Worlds Largest Rice spoon, don't everyone be jealous now!

This is the Torii Gate to Miyajima Island. There are two main religions in Japan one is Buddism and Shinto, and at every shrine/cemetary it is identified by whether it has a Torii Gate(Shinto) or I think a statue for Buddism. So this Torii is in front of the Itsukushima Shrine and marks a pathway into a sacred place.

Gotta do our peace sign!

This picture is a little hard to see, I don't have a program to fix it right now.

Our friends Ben and Tish, we hang with them most of the time.

Nice view of the Tori Gate. Behind it is the Itsukushima Shrine.

This little guy was trying to eat Ryan's shirt and then he was going after the paper, they all wanted the paper for some reason.

It's really weird to be so close to them, you get a little scared

Isn't he so cute and fair!

They just love to sit and chill. It was pretty hot so I understand.