Hiroshima Explorations

Well, I'm back from my wanderings for the day, and am going to cool off a bit and then maybe head back out later for dinner. My goal for today was to get my alien residency stuff done and get some residency certificates. In order to do that, I needed to find a place to get photos done. I asked one of my roommates if he knew of any places this morning, and he said there was a photo booth in the train station hidden somewhere around Hondori Street (which is where I do my training next week). Anyway, I sort of had a map, and tried following it, but because I'm spatially incompetent and all the street signs are written in Japanese, and my map was written in English, I made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up going in the totally opposite direction. It was still interesting though - Hiroshima is on a river delta, so there are all these different rivers that cut through the city as they branch apart, and I wandered along a path alongside one for awhile, which is about when I realized where I was and that I had gone the way. It was right near the Red Cross/Atomic Bomb Survivors Hospital though, which I thought was a bit interesting. After wandering a bit more, I turned around and now that I had aligned myself properly found Hondori Street pretty easily. It's really cool - this big broad street that is covered from above and is all just pedestrian traffic, with tons and tons of little boutiques, shops, arcades, coffee shops, etc. Supposedly it's one of the main shopping destinations in the area. I stopped in a book store and looked around a bit, and checked out this huge game store to see if I could find a go board cheap, without much luck. They had a huge video game section at the top floor, but I'm too poor still to get into any of those. I found my photo booth and got my photos though, then went to the Naka Ward Office and after a short communication struggle managed to fill out the necessary paper work and get my documents. I already knew this before coming, but it's amazing how much more customer oriented the employees here are. I first noticed on the bullet train how whenever a staff memeber came into the train car they would bow first, then walk through it, and then bow again before leaving, even though everybody's back was too them. At the Naka Office, the employees would -run- from computer to desk to filing cabinet to computer. Another cool thing - it's supposedly rude to offer a tip to somebody, which is fine by me.
I should have mentioned this before, but Hiroshima is HOT. Supposedly the weather is a bit atypical right now, but today was 31C and very humid. I'm sure I'll get used to hit, but walking around for 3 or 4 hours today was pretty exhausting. My room is air conditioned though, so at least I have a small refuge.
Oh, I tried my first vending machine. Japanese Mountain Dew != Canadian Mountain Dew, but it was close enough, and still very refreshing.
Anyway, I took some pictures today, but found out that the cable I brought to upload them to my computer is the wrong size, so I'll need to check later and see if I can find another one to buy, or find a card reader or something. There was a giant computer/electronics store on Hondori, so I'll go check it out tomorrow and see what I can find. Hopefully my luggage gets delivered okay tonight, because I want to unpack and finish settling in.
-Richard