March 16

Today started out fairly early again at 8:30. We began walking in the direction of Hiroshima eki, making a few stops as we went. We made it all the way to the eki with no problems, but once we walked off my guide’s map, we started worrying a bit because we had planned to follow the train tracks and couldn’t really see them. We even passed the new Carps stadium before we stopped in a Mazda dealership to ask directions. As a bonus (to the instructions to walk zutto down the road), I picked up a free Mazda calendar. We passed another dealership which seemed to fit the description ofw hat the first dealer’s employee described, but upon going inside, we were told to keep walking again. We asked a third time of a man in a Mazda station box. After what seemed like forever (in a part of the city that resembled what I initially thought of Hiroshima; that it was a barren, desolate, old factory town) , we came upon the museum. We had been walking from a bit before nine to a bit before eleven. Since w were two hours early, we stashed our bags in the free, high-tech Mazda lockers and got lost in the residential area (along the seven kilometers of Mazda factory) where we waved at little kids at their elementary school playground and patronized the local konbini. There wasn’t much to speak of, other than the bizarre placement of a playground under a highway bridge. When we came back to Mazda, we played Gran Turismo 4 (with wheel and pedals set up in the museum lobby), until about one, when we got our nametags and got on the bus to visit Mazda. Let me say that it was about 1000 times better than Honda. Not only were there actual happenings on the assembly line, but the tour itself was much more interesting (probably in part because we were told about the rotary engine and didn’t get as much filler as from Honda). Apparently, it takes fifteen hours to make a Mazda and thirty days to get it to the Eastern US. Mazda even owns their own bridge and has a two-year technical school. One of their latest innovations is the hydrogen hybrid RX-8 (which is pretty awesome). They did have the Lemon’s-winning car (Lemons sounds funny in Japanese), but their gift shop was lacking.

Afterward, we decided to take the train back to Hiroshima eki and try to explore a bit. Of curse, we ended up getting very lost, but we did happen upon a bit oft heir shopping district that we had missed and had delicious crépes while people-watching. The crépe truck was bright pink and blasted up-beat American music, so it was a nice experience.

Back in fairly-familiar Hiroshima, we visited the ten-story mall (which was closed because it was about nine) and went back to our hostel where we enjoyed prepared food from the nearby supermarket. I had sakana katsudon (fried tilapia over rice).