Day 16

I had a rough start this morning.  Breakfast was mystery rice balls.  I tried two, one was seaweed and the other was actually good.  Then I am not sure how I thought we were meeting 10 minutes later then we were, so I ended up being late and everyone was waiting on me.  To make it worse I packed my rail pass in my luggage that was staying at the hotel so I had to quickly run back and get it.  I made it to the train just fine.  Later we did leave Ryan at another train station and Ray and Tiffany lost their rail pass on the last train of the day.  It was not our best rail day and hopefully our last bad one.  Our first visit was the public tour of Mazda.  It was not as exciting as I was hoping for.  They took us to their museum, which was like our Heritage Center for GM.  We saw some old cars and a new concept car (shown at a 2008 auto show).  They are focused heavily on hydrogen power.  Part of the tour was then to observe the assembly plant.  We saw them installing flooring, dashboards, windshields, and a few other parts on a mixed model line.  I would think the potential for error would be higher going from building a sports car to a sedan, but their process seemed very structured.  Many parts move in a basket along with the vehicle and there were digital displays at every station for workers to rely on.  The plant is huge.  They store and ship cars right from their own port on site.

Next we had lunch.  I tried a traditional dish only made in Hiroshima called, Okonomiyaki (fry what you like).  It was strange, but I ate most of it.  Basically they start with a pancake batter then add bean sprouts, cabbage, noodles, meat (mystery, maybe chicken), shrimp, an egg and some kind of soy/bbq sauce.  

Then we took a train to the ferry over to the Itsukushima Shrine in Miyajima.  The ferry ride was very short, but beautiful.  When we stepped of the ferry there were live deer hanging out.  Even though there was a sign that said clearly do not touch or feed the animals, some of our group did (silly undergrads).  The tide was out so we didn’t get to see the reflection of the torii gate.  It was still really cool to see and walk around.  I also think it was be amazing to see at night because there were many lights lining the pathways.  After viewing the shrine we walked up to the Goju-no-to (five-story pagoda) which is a blend of Chinese and Japanese architectural style.  Right next to the five story pagoda was the Senjokaku (Toyokuni Shrine) which we entered.  It was never completed because Toyotomi Hideyoshi died.  There was art lining ceilings and we were told it is all original.  Then it was back to the hotel to gather our luggage and hop on a train to the next hotel.  I was still hunger when we got in and Dr. Laurence, Theresa, Ray, Chris and I walked down the street to eat “bbq”.  We had 5 different types of meat on the stick.  The only thing I could not eat was the chicken skin.  I had pork belly, some fancy chicken and plum, chicken knees, and meat balls.