I Don't Want Nirvana! I Want Great Food, Always! -- Part XIX - Amazing Fujiwara Ramen...

The whole trip around the Heiwa Kinen Koen, Genbaku Dome and the Hypocenter left us with quite an appetite. We were craving hot food, we were craving ramen...

As we were completing our round of the area, we stopped by at what is called the Rest House building today to buy some souvenirs.

This location was home to the Taishoya Kimono shop, which was housed in a modern-looking, reinforced-concrete structure was quite unusual at that time when most buildings were made of wood. As the Second World War progressed, the kimono store had to shut shop in December 1943, due to a law restricting textile sale. 

On August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb exploded only 170 meters from this building and the roof was crushed, the interior destroyed and everything consumable burned except in the basement. The building however did retain its basic shape. There was only one survivor - a man who had gone down to the basement to get documents. He died in June 1982. The basement room is preserved as it was just after the bomb exploded.

While we were shopping around for souvenirs, we asked the manager if he could suggest a place for good ramen. He directed us across the Motoyasu Bridge to the Fujiwara ramen, where we were told, we would get the best ramen. He was curious to know where we were from and when told him we belonged to India, his face lit and he said he had always wanted to visit India. Again... one more example of our incredible, but under-rated soft-power!

Walking though the neighbourhood...

Finally at Fujiwara...

Forget the spellings, but "Welcome to Hiroshima (in) Peace!!"...

Waiting for our ramens to get ready...

This is a charming little place..

And here come the ramen...

Ramen is a Japanese noodle soup dish, which consists of Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a meat or fish-based broth, flavored with soy sauce or miso and with toppings such as sliced pork, nori  or dried seaweed  and green onions...

We devoured the ramen, slurped every drop of the flavourful soup and felt content. And that's when it dawned on us - we've got to head back to Hiroshima station to catch the Shinkansen to Osaka...

And we said our goodbyes to Fujiwara ramen and made a dash for the Genbaku Dome-mae tramcar station...