Awesome travel write-up as always! While I've visited other cities of Japan (Kyoto, Tokyo) I haven't visited Hiroshima. The castle looks like it's in excellent condition, those are some interesting artifacts on display. It is very hard to imagine, though, what it was like to actually be a samurai in those times - can you imagine trying to attack one of these, or even destroying such a magnificent work of architecture? Of course back then, we don't want rivals to look better than us but still, hard to imagine more violent times.

The food looks great, eel and oysters are so good, especially when the Japanese cook it. It's great that they apparently still have an abundance of local seafood; it's pretty tragic when the local wildlife gets overhunted into local extinction; even where I am in the United States, in the past there would be tons of salmon but the salmon runs are slowly dying over time...

That spatula is a funny picture, clearly made as a statue and not ever used. But as for massive spoons that were used, I did visit a museum in Canada where it had on display an artifact used by the native Americans - a solid thick spoon as long as your arm, huge but still usable, mostly in festivals.

Some might say a good deed is its own reward but I like the idea of having positive karma... but maybe I should pray at a Buddhist temple first?