Around Koi and Hiroshima

This is the gate to Hiroshima Castle.

This tree survived the atomic bomb.

This is the shrine (I think it's a shrine. I haven't quite figured out the difference between a shrine and a temple yet) outside of the castle.

You can see the top of the castle over the trees. It kind of makes you feel like it must be a big castle.

But it's not. Anyway, this is a reconstruction. The original was destroyed in World War II.

Here is the moat surrounding the castle. I've always associated moats with medieval Europe. Apparently there aren't many different ways to protect a castle. It's the same in Europe and Asia.

Kurstin and I with our Hiroshima style okonomiyaki. There are two types of okonomiyaki here: Kansai and Hiroshima. Hiroshima style has noodles in it. Hiroshima style is the best! Haha.
It was good but I can never finish all of it and apparently that's rude but since I'm a foreigner I get a free pass.

Every time I go to the station near my apartment I always look at the many houses on the hill and wonder how to get up there, lol. So one day I went walking around Koi and I think I got pretty close. But the streets sort of looked like private driveways so I didn't go up. I just took some pictures.

Who lives up there??

So things have been going well here in Japan. Very well, in fact. I finally don't have to think so much about lesson planning and I'm getting a lot better at coming up with different activities for my students to play.
I have met quite a few people here and I'm slowly picking up Japanese. I went and got a bicycle today. My Japanese friend and her husband came with me and translated for me. There was no way I could have done that by myself. But it is raining now and it's supposed to rain for the rest of the week so I may have to wait a while before I can ride it.
The weather is starting to get humid and all of my students keep telling me, "Wait until summer. Wait until summer." Apparently, the summers here are rainy and unbearably humid. That is one thing I am not looking forward to.
I went to Kyoto and Miyajima for Golden Week so I'll post some of those pictures later. I have soooo many.
What else can I tell you guys? I figured out where most of the places I like to go to on the weekends are. So if anyone is coming to visit me we can definitely go to the video game bar. There's also another bar themed after the manga "Death Note" but it's called Death Not. It's really small but I went last weekend with Tim, James and his wife. There were three Japanese guys next to us that we ended up talking to. From what I gathered, one just became a father and another is a train engineer.
Also, a few weeks ago I was out with some friends and they decided to figure out how to write all of the foreigners' names in Kanji. So my name breaks down to Ji-e-shi-ka and that means... Time River Death Fire.
...
Chotto kowai, ne? (A little scary, right?)

That's all for now,
Time River Death Fire Peace Green Pepper