Hiking Club and Oyster Festival

I'm a little bit of a slacker with getting this one written but on February 8th we went hiking with the hiking club again.  It was the shortest hike we have done with the group so far and not particularly spectacular but it was nice to get out in the woods and hike.  The hike was about 2 hours of up hill (the first 30 minutes paved and then on steep and winding single track).  It started with a shrine and a very pretty waterfall.

Shrine

Obligatory red, arched bridge

Really pretty little water fall

Proof I hauled my pregnant self on a hike ;-)

 It was a cold day and since I have gotten quite a bit rounder, I borrowed Jeff's ski jacket, long johns, shirt and wind pants.  There was a chance of rain that day and I didn't want to be wearing cotton which produces no warmth if it gets wet.  I have heard that pregnant people are always warm, that might be true for some people but I seem to have retained my adversion to cold and particularly to cold and wet.  If you notice, I even have my umbrella strapped to my  backpack, you can see the handle sticking out.

When we got to the top of the mountain, we stopped for a little snack.  Jeff and I had thermoses of hot chocolate and dark chocolate kit-kats to share (sharing snacks is very much a part of the hiking club tradition).  As we were eating our snacks, it started to rain rather hard and those of us (about half) with umbrellas huddled under them (and those that mocked us, ahem, Jeff, got wet). The rain turned to snow and the general falling of wet stuff lasted about 20 minutes.  It cleared up pretty quickly and we started the hike down.  I was glad for all of my layers and stayed dry and warm.

Bit of a nice view on the way up

Looking back at the town where we started.  Across the water is Miyajima (the red gate in the water that I've been to a couple of times)

Looking out at the islands across the way

 The hike was a loop so we went back a different route than we came up.  The descent was fairly steep and slippery in places where there were large rocks.  Most of the way down there were handy trees to grab but occasionally where it was particularly steep and slippery I just sat down and slid on my butt so I didn't have to worry about falling, it worked great.  We got down in about an hour and hopped back on the train, went two stops and got off at a town having an oyster festival.

Looking back at mount Jou (pronounced Joe)

 The Oyster Festival was a large number of food venders with tents set up (sorry, I should have taken pictures but didn't) and selling all varieties of food.  There was grilled, fried and raw oysters, ramen with oysters, cotton candy, hot dogs wrapped in fried squid, all manner of meat on a stick and french fries, to list a few.

Hiroshima is rather famous in Japan for having fantastic oysters.  I've had oysters in Hiroshima several times.  My favorite way is grilled in the shell.  They are still not my favorite thing and I must say that the french fries looked far more appealing so Jeff and I split some fries and fried chicken and skipped the oysters.  It seems like a bit of a waste but it was really good.

Jeff and I went home full and happy for the fresh air and sunshine, took hot showers to warm up and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon on the couch watching netflix.  It was a great way to spend a Sunday.