Woke up rather early (6:30a or so) this morning but after eating a snack went back to sleep for a bit and got around for real about 9:30 or so. Steven is on night shift so he got up and we wished him a good day at work and shortly after Leah, Zach, Becky and I headed over to the Kintai Bridge and Iwakuni Castle for a little sight seeing.

We are definitely still getting used to the whole driving on the left side of the road thing plus the roads are super narrow so it’s exciting. We got there and a lot of people were out for cherry blossom (sakura) viewing (hanami) and there were several vendors selling food items and Becky and I went for a little Teriyaki Chicken on a stick. They had octopus as well as pork, beef and sausage but we weren’t up for octopus quite yet and the chicken was very good, nice grilled sweet flavor.

We then proceeded up to the bridge itself and got our tickets for the ropeway (cable car) and the castle and walked across. The bridge itself is very unique and has 5 arches 3 of which have little steps up and down each side which were a little awkward as they were just too short but wide enough that taking 2 at a time was tough.

We then walked through a park which would be beautiful I think almost any time of the year but was particularly pretty with the falling cherry blossoms everywhere. We actually saw 2 weddings going on in the park area one traditional japanese and one more western.

After strolling through the park we took the ropeway up the mountain to the castle and walked up the trail to the castle itself. The castle itself is pretty impressive and dominates the river valley of Iwakuni below.

Inside there is a museum on the first 3 levels and the top floor is a nice observation area with sweeping vies of the whole area below including all the way to the marine base and the islands off shore.

After completing the castle we took a little break before heading back down the trail to the ropeway area. When we got back down we went throught the white snake exhibit for a certain type of snake (all white) that live and are unique to the Iwakuni area.

We then went back through the main park area and got some ice cream, I had cherry blossom, Becky had green tea and vanilla and Leah had cherry blossom and melon. After walking around finishing our ice cream and running into a few of Leah’s friends we went back across the bridge and to the car. By this time we had heard that Steven was going to be working late so we went to a conveyor belt sushi place they like and had a good time trying the different types of sushi (won’t remember all but some of the interesting ones we had were egg, corn and mayo, unagi (eel), fatty tuna, cooked tuna, and squid).

After sushi we ordered some to go sushi for Steven at work and we took it to him which was VERY cool for me as he works on F-18s and anyone that knows me knows how cool that was to see the hangar with 6 or so jets in various stages of repair. We got back to the apartment and Becky and I went for a walk along the sea wall out to the ocean side of base.

We came back and hung out with Steven and Leah for the rest of the evening.

As always remember to hit the gallery for more pics https://s0kud0.smugmug.com/Travel/Japan-2010