3 November 2023
Much of it is new
Hiroshima shopping area
Let me check when I was last here... November 2015. It rained much of the time I was here then. Anyway, 8 years later and quite a lot has changed in the down town area, at least I think it has. Generally this means Parco has taken over entire city blocks. They seem to be the department store on the rise across Japan.
It was actually not as busy as I expected it to be, however the okonomiyaki tower place had a huge line going up the stairs, so I will probably save that for Monday night.
I think the station area, which is about a 20 minute walk from the main shopping area, has had the most amount of change. A lot more shops and big buildings than I remember.
Later I will do a forensic comparison between 2015 and 2023.
First I had to cross a bridge. The water was very still. No wind. On the way here today the pollution out the train window was horrendous, so a bit of wind would probably be a good thing.
Here is the start of the covered shopping streets. There are a lot of them here. Yes I know what they are called in Japanese. No I will not be using the Japanese word.
I guess this is the main street. I am almost certain I took a photo from the same spot in 2015.
A Parco appears, dissecting all the covered shopping streets.
This is probably the main outdoor undercover mall. See what I did there?
The local book off had a good collection of used musical gear. I do not know why I bother looking, importing anything to Australia would be a massive drama.
I climbed up the tram gantry for this view of a random street.
For dinner, udon, with what was claimed to be wild local vegetables, which I suspect was frozen vegetables out of a bag. For my deep fried surprises I chose pumpkin and lotus root.
Harsh, but fair. I don't eat Gyoza.
The big Sogo lives on. It looks like a relic.
And for tonight's final shot, the abandoned MUSTY underground mall. Actually it did not smell musty, it had distinct odour of leaded petrol.