I go home in one week and my finals have ended.

I am making sure to see all my friends before I leave. I've met so many wonderful people while here and I am so happy!

I went to a farewell party for my Japanese Professor whom I've had for two semesters now. Although sometimes he was strict, he is definitely one of my favorite professors throughout my college years and my favorite professor at APU. He kindly invited us to his home and we cooked and had pizza! (Haven't had pizza in a while!!)

My Japanese class has always been a small bunch. This semester we were less than ten and everyone was from different countries. (Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Finland, Uzbekistan and South Korea.) We have become very close friends and I hope I can visit them all again one day!

My professor will no longer be teaching in APU so we are his last students! I wish him luck in the future and with his move! (Let's keep in contact!) I also wish everyone else good luck in their studies and future jobs!

I may or may not have cried when the party was over...

First stop is Hiroshima. We arrived later than planned on the 6th, therefore we ended up missing the Peace Ceremony at the Hiroshima Peace Park. So we went to the hostel, which ended up being close to the station. I definitely recommend it! Hiroshima Peace Hotel. We stayed in the hostel style, cheap lodging, but it was air conditioned, has laundry and clean shower/toilet facilities. The staff is nice and there is a small kitchen we took advantage of. Unfortunately they were only available for one night and we had to switch to a different hostel that morning.

First off, we went to Miyajima, which is an island not too far from Hiroshima. It has a famous red gate sticking out of the water. Being low tide, we could walk out to it. The whole temple is on stilts, as the tide comes far up to make it look like it is floating! Oh, and just like every other random place in Japan there are wild deer that don't care.

That is the boat we took. Maybe 20 minutes.

Baby deer, Mom deer is close by...

Chocolate Chip... maybe

Inside Itsukushima Shrine

Also known as, a cabbage pancake, pizza like but with no cheese thing smothered in sauce, bonito flakes and Japanese mayo. Sounds complicated? I have no idea how or why this was made, but it tastes great!

Okonomiyaki is exactly as I said. It's made like a giant pancake, but mixed with the batter is lots and lots of cabbage! From there, you can add anything you'd like. Different meats like bacon, pork, beef, chicken, then you can add cheese, or seafood.

On top is okonomiyaki sauce and Japanese mayo. Everything tastes better with Japanese mayo. It's different, but it's hard to explain why...

We made a Hiroshima version. After making the okonomiyaki, you make yakisoba (panfried soba) and put it on a fried egg, then put the okonomiyaki on top! So much food! Each massive pancake is for each person!

Chef Naruho at work.

Sous Chef Kanako

"Did I do it right?"

OKONOMIYAKI!

一緒にお好み焼きを食べよう!

(Let's eat OKONOMIYAKI together!)