The Countdown

Waiting at the Hiroshima airport, bye-bye until next time. Many thanks to Ritsue's mom, Reiko for her hospitality.

 

I hope the pilot doesn't need more runway than that.

Well, the advantage of the exit row seats, look at all the space we get to ourselves.

One last look at Mt. Fuji.

Heading for Haneda.

Well, the theme of the trip, lol. We had an hour to kill until our bus to Kawasaki.

Once again looking out over Tokyo from her sister's condo building.

The always busy rail lines beneath us.

On this Sunday we took a JR Sobu Line train and ended up here ......

Looking kinda festive.......

It was an incredible experience at the Ryogoku Sumo Hall. (Kokugikan Arena) I have a new found respect for these wrestlers.

Some fast action indeed, as my phone tried to capture.

We arrived around 1 p.m., the crowd was sparse as the earlier matches are lower level wrestlers.

We stayed until 6 p.m. The place filled up for the final matches. Overall we probably watched some 50 matches over 5 hours. I became a real fan. The strength, the strategy, it was all really fascinating.

Five hours, your going to need a snack and a refreshment.....

Before the next division squares off, all the wrestlers come into the ring.

There's two happy fans right there!

No different than a lot of sports, the fans waited outside to get a picture or an autograph. This is one of the more well know wrestlers, Shoudai.

Oh groan, all these people headed to the train station? (We got home eventually, all in all, a fab day!

Get your Costco on

The early morning mock strawberry pic.

 

It was time to re-stock Ritsue's mom's place. As much as I don't like going to Costco in Burnaby (too crowded for me), I thought I could check and see if there were any notable differences.

Like a 1.75 litre bottle of Grey Goose is only $6,098 yen, tax included. (about $59 Canadian). That would be $109.99 plus tax in my hood.

The layout was pretty similar to Costco stores back home.

Drove by Mazda Zoom Zoom stadium. If there was a Carp game today, it surely wouldn't be rained out, sigh. (There will not be any games while the G7 conference is here.)

Yakitori time!

Went to a place called Fratto for some yummy fun.

As I recall, that was a lot of meat.

With an occasional dumpling thrown in......

....and a fish or two.

The dessert?

The stick receptacle. (It got a lot fuller than that)

The start your morning walk and see what you see, pic. 

Walking above the sports fields above Ritsue's mother's place I found this old pop bottle on what seemed to be an old garbage dump. Apparently some of the sports fields are built on the same dump.

A longer story for another day, but we managed to get the bamboo mat from mom's house to the waste disposal.

Later in the day we thought we were going to an ocean park in Hiroshima, turns out it wasn't much of a park at all.

Driving through downtown, more evidence of the upcoming G7 conference.

Hiroshima Castle. The walk way I was on was deserted except for one police officer. A lot of the downtown core was vacated.

Hey guys, don't be coy with me.

Haha, souvenirs....

Now that's a Carp fan!

A little color in the morning from mom's hedge.

Now why don't I own a butter grinder???

.....and there it was, live, Trudeau posing with the Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida and his wife Yuko at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

Walking above the sports fields again, I ran into this billboard which at first I thought was for a new subdivision.

Turns out it is a subdivision for burial plots.

Is it more money for the view terrace?

Now which way?

Definitely not that way.

It was a nice change of pace.

When I saw this sign I decided the hike was over. (turns out the sign is from a sighting in 2016)

Well, now that I'm thoroughly confused, I think I'll call it a day.

The end of the day, thistle, pic.

Last view of Hiroshima for this trip.

The next day, there is the G7 gang at Miyajima.