Trip Overiew Part 7 - Day 9 - Hiroshima

Sunday morning, May 19th, was another early start for me.  I had reservations for a Shinkansen train from Osaka to Hiroshima at 8:44 which would get me into Hiroshima at around 10:30 but that had not been my original plan.  I had originally wanted to get an earlier train but when I tried to make a reservation for that train a few days earlier in Nagoya, I had discovered that it was sold out.  What I decided to do though (based on Deanna's recommendation) was to see if I could get on that earlier train after all using an unreserved seat.  

Most Shinkansen trains that JR Pass holders are eligible to ride on will have three cars with unreserved seats that you can use if they're available (the one exception is the Tohoku Shinkansen which only has reserved seats).  You can't necessarily depend on there being a seat available but I thought it was worth getting there early and seeing if I could catch the earlier train.  It turned out that there was no problem getting a seat in the unreserved car and I was off to Hiroshima a half hour earlier than planned.

I had tickets for the Carp - Giants game that afternoon and I was a little concerned about the weather.  It was overcast and there was a threat of rain in the forecast.  I got an email from Michael Westbay of JapanBall Tickets advising me about the weather and passing along what to do if the game ended up rained out.  But a look at the weather app on my phone made me feel optimistic that we were going to get the game in - it looked like the bulk of the wet weather was going to be south of where I was:

We pulled into Hiroshima right around ten.  The Shinkansen track runs right by the Carp's ballpark and I took some photos even though I was on the wrong side of the train:

I got off the train and immediately started looking for a storage locker for my suitcase.  Since I wasn't spending the night there, I couldn't leave it at my hotel like I had in Nagoya and Osaka.  I immediately ran into a problem though - there were enough people in town both for the Giants game and to see the atomic bomb site that all the lockers were in use.  Luckily they had set up basically an overflow luggage storage area in a somewhat out of the way place and once I found it, I was able to get my suitcase and backpack stored.  With that squared away, it was time to move out.

The game was at 1330 that afternoon and it was already about 1030 by the time I got on the streetcar so I didn't really have anytime to get over to either the old stadium site or the atomic bomb park.  But since I had visited both in 2019, I didn't think I really needed to go back.  Instead I headed for the Mint Hiroshima card shop.

After my quick stop at the card shop, I followed up on a suggestion of Ryan's.  One of my goals for this trip was to experience some of the different regional food specialities and Ryan had told me that there was basically a mall of okonomiyaki restaurants in the block behind the Don Quijote store that the card shop was in.  So I decided to go there and get some for lunch.

I'm not sure I found exactly what Ryan was talking about, but I did find this restaurant in the block behind the DonQ.  It was on the second floor of the building and I had to climb a somewhat narrow staircase to get to it.

I sat down at a table and looked over the menu.  I ended up ordering number six with soba noodles.

The woman who took my order suggested that I move from the table over to the grill so I could watch the cook prepare my meal and I followed her suggestion.  Here's my food getting made:

I ate it off the grill using a spatula to cut it up.  To be honest, I don't remember if I ate it off the spatula or if I used chopsticks after cutting pieces off it.  It was pretty good.

By the time I finished eating, it was time to head to the ballpark.  I walked the few block back to the street car station, rode it to a stop close to the stadium and started walking the rest of the way.  En route I received news from my wife and daughter that I had become a grandfather - my daughter had given birth to a little girl.

I wanted to approach the ballpark from a different angle than I had in 2019 so I went a little out of my way.  Instead of joining the crowd coming from Hiroshima Station and entering the ballpark via the ramp in the left field corner, I looped around to enter the ballpark grounds behind home plate:

I walked into the Carp's souvenir store that was at this level and looked around for a bit.  I didn't see anything that I felt like spending any money on until I ran into a display of items from a collaboration the Carp did with Ultraman.  I couldn't resist buying this button:

On my way out of the store I was stopped by an employee and asked to take part in a survey.  They wanted to know some details about how I knew about the Carp and how I had gotten tickets.  In return for doing the survey, they gave me this button featuring Ryoji Kuribayashi:

My seats were in the upper deck and I decided to be lazy and take the elevator up.  The attendants asked me if I was rooting for the Giants or the Carp, and I told them the Carp.  I was wearing a Cubs shirsey with Seiya Suzuki's name and number on it, so I made a point then of turning around and showing them whose shirt it was.  

The seating in the upper deck of the Carp's ballpark is a little confusing.  There's a left and right sections starting behind home plate that use the same numbers.  My seat was on the left side but I initially went to the right side instead.  I figured it out pretty quick though.  I was pretty happy with the view from my seat:

The pitching matchup for the game was Rei Takahashi of the Giants against Makoto Aduwa for the Carp.  It didn't look good for the home team early on, as Yomiuri scored three in the top of the first.  Hiroshima came roaring back in the bottom of the inning though, scoring four runs to take the lead with three of them coming on a Shota Suekane home run.  The Carp continued to pour it on, putting up two runs in the fourth, two more in the fifth and one run on a solo home run for Ryosuke Kikuchi in the sixth.  The Giants, on the other hand, didn't score again in the rest of the game.  The final score was 9-3 in favor of the Carp.

I haven't been able to find a highlight video for the game that isn't region-locked but I did find this fan video of the Carp's rally in the bottom of the first:

I mentioned earlier that the ballpark is quite close to the Shinkansen tracks.  I took this picture of a train passing by during the game:

My train for Fukuoka wasn't scheduled to leave until that evening so I had some time to kill after the ballgame ended.  I wandered away from the ballpark with the vague idea of finding a nearby Sukiya restaurant to grab dinner at when I spied this building:

This is Red Helmet, a hotel/hostel just a few blocks from the ballpark.  And, more importantly, it's also a sports bar with a bunch of memorabilia for the Carp and other teams.  I was kind of surprised when I stepped in that there weren't more fans inside but I'm guessing that the serious ones were still in the ballpark for the hero interviews and post-game cheers.  Here's some photos from the inside:

It reminded me of Pikaichi, the Chinese restaurant in Nagoya with the Dragons memorabilia that Sean and I had visited a couple days earlier.  I will say the food was better at Pikaichi - I got grilled chicken here with a beer and it was ok but nothing to write home about.  By the time I was done eating there were a lot more fans arriving so I paid up and headed over to Hiroshima Station.

I had reservations on a train leaving for Fukuoka at around 1952 but I decided to see if I could do the unreserved route again.  I retrieved my suitcase and backpack and headed up to the train platform.  Sure enough, I was able to snag an unreserved seat on a train at around 1830 which meant I was checking into my hotel in Fukuoka right around the time the train with my reserved seat left Hiroshima.  I had big plans for the next day so it was good that I had a chance to get some rest.