Visiting Hiroshima: Part One

Hiroshima has some historical significance, and for me, there’s a familial connection, but I’ll leave the heavier stuff for the next time I write to you.

Dear Jane,

My friend, formerly known as Spanish Caleb, now Japanese Caleb, met me in Hiroshima for our weekend trip through the western Kansai region. Before I move forward with Hiroshima, here’s more about Caleb:

You probably think it’s weird that I’m assigning nationalities or languages to his name. He’s an American immigrant living the ex-pat dream of moving to other countries, and he does it by teaching English. Prior to moving to Japan, Caleb taught in Spain. I called him Spanish Caleb because of the Spanish language. Before Spain, he participated in an immersion program in Costa Rica. And now, in Japan, his boss has told him, “You are Japanese now.” So I was required to change his nickname to meet the standards of his employer.

You’re welcome, Caleb.

We have actually been friends since we worked together at a large performing arts organization in New York (I still work there). The structure of the trip that I’ve taken to Japan was dreamed up by both of us, and it was going to work out that we’d get the same vacation time because I’m in charge of scheduling. But then Covid stuck, and you know the story from there.

In visiting Hiroshima, we had two goals: Visit the Peace Memorial Museum and Park and to eat Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. I think Hiroshima is most well known for these things. All other points of interest seem to be day trips.

For the Okonomiyaki, we went to the famous local spot, Okonomimura, sometimes called Okonomi Village. I don’t think it’s that widely known amongst tourists, but there are a fair number of YouTubers who have featured it in videos now, so I might be wrong. We noticed almost everyone there was Japanese.

We went pretty late at night, like after 9:30. Their listing on Google claims they are open until midnight. Okonomimura is a collection of okonomiyaki restaurants/stalls on the second, third, and fourth stories of a tall building, and we learned that the stalls on the second and third floors close early.

They actually close doors on the other side of the elevator doors, so when the elevator opens, there’s basically a wall in front of you. I remember a sign on this door, but we definitely didn’t read it and went through the door anyway. After some exploration and a somewhat sketchy stair situation, we found ourselves on the fourth floor where there were plenty of open stalls. So, if you’re going late at night, take the elevator to the fourth floor. And if you forget about reading this, I left a Google review to remind you.

The okonomiyaki was delicious. Hiroshima style and Osaka style are set apart by how the ingredients are combined, and Hiroshima style uses noodles. In Osaka, all the ingredients get tossed in a bowl, mixed, and thrown on the grill. In Hiroshima, they cook the ingredients separately, but not really. They get added one layer at a time to the grill (they flip it a few times to make sure things are cooked well). Each layer gets cooked to a point before the next is added, and then we ate them directly off the grill. When I had okonomiyaki in Osaka, it wasn’t cooked in front of me, but my table had a hot grill that it was transferred to. Presentation differs by restaurant.

There were some other interesting food discoveries (?) in Hiroshima. I found an ice cream popsicle called “Choco Corn.” Instead of being some weird or interesting chocolate and corn combo, it was pretty much creamed corn soup on a stick, with a corn candy coating. Not good, not bad. Mostly, it made me feel some nostalgia for my Abuela who ate creamed corn soup with me when I was a kid. When I told her about this popsicle, she laughed at me and asked why I would eat that. Because I love you, Abuela, and that’s why I had one right before leaving Japan.

Caleb introduced me to Styrofoam-waffle ice cream and lemon flavored Cheetos. To clarify, they were not Cheetos with additional lemon flavoring. They were just lemon, no cheese. And despite that, they were nasty. The Styrofoam-waffle ice cream was good once you accepted the Styrofoam texture.

Japan has a lot of other great foods, but I’ll save that for another time I write to you.

<3 Katherine