Recreation
Know Your Carp
The Hiroshima Carp have no competition for the city's sports loyalty. Some key facts to get you up to speed:
The Carp own the color red in Hiroshima, but it wasn't adopted by the team until 1973, along with their Cincinnati Reds-style logo. Red is intended to symbolize a never-ending fighting spirit.
The 1978-80 Akaheru Red Helmets team was almost certainly the team's apex, setting league records for home runs and winning two championships.
However, the Carp's last pennant was 1991, giving them the longest title drought in Japanese baseball.
Slugger Koji Yamamoto is Mr. Red Helmet, the team's all-time great now retired. The cream of the recent crop are outfielder Shigenobu Shima, the Red Godzilla; outfielder Tomonori Maeda, the arrogant samurai; and pitcher Hiroki Kuroda, a recent export to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Cash has been a recurrent problem throughout the team's history, with local citizens pitching in to keep the team afloat on more than one occasion. Today, Mazda is the team's largest minority owner, but without a deep-pocketed sponsor like Tokyo's Yomiuri Giants or even Sapporo's Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, the Carp struggle to hang on to free agents.
The Carp's mascot, Slyly, bears a striking resemblance to the Philly Phanatic because he was designed by the same firm.
Hiroshima Toyo Carp Baseball
The much-beloved and much-bemoaned Carp are Hiroshima's entry in the Central League of Nippon Professional Baseball (http://www.npb.or.jp/). After more than fifty years in a stadium across the street from the Peace Park, the Carp moved to the new Mazda Zoom Zoom Stadium to begin the 2009 season. While the team doesn't win much, the enthusiasm of the fans can hardly be faulted, and Hiroshima is as good a place as any to witness the fervor of Japanese baseball fandom. Tickets range from ¥1800 to ¥3500. Ask for the Carp Performance ã«ã¼ã ããã©ã¼ãã³ã¹ tickets — that's where the drums, chants, and excitement are. Tickets are sold at the stadium starting at 10AM, the "Green Window" at JR Hiroshima Station, and a number of convenience stores.
Hiroshima Sanfrecce Soccer
Sanfrecce Japanese/Italian for "three arrows", from a Japanese folk tale are Hiroshima's entry in the J-League (http://www.j-league.or.jp/eng/), although they date back to 1938 as a semi-pro team. As such, they're thoroughly grounded in the local athletic tradition of rarely playing well yet never badly enough to be remarkable about it. But the fans are great, and the quality of play in the J-League is all right, although obviously not comparable to the major European leagues.
JT Thunders
And if you're on a quest to complete the whole set of Hiroshima professional sports, visit the JT Thunders (http://www.jti.co.jp/know...) of the V-League (http://www.vleague.or.jp/) volleyball, who hold court at the Nekoda Kinen Gymnasium, and the Hiroshima Maple Reds (http://www.maplereds.net/) of the Japanese Handball League (http://www.jhl.handball.j...), Women's Division, who play at the Hirogin no mori Gymnasium.
Family Pool
Open from 1 July-31 August, right when it's needed most, this huge, open-air pool/water park is a popular place for kids and families to beat the heat. And it's easy to find — in Chuo Park, right in the center of town.
Big Wave
On the other hand, if you're a serious swimmer, Big Wave offers longer hours and Olympic-size 50 meter swim lanes from July to early September. Then, from November to April, it turns into an ice-skating rink. Rental skates are available, although people with big feet may not manage.
Shimizu Theater
Classical dramas alternate with classical bondage porn at this strange theater — check out the posters in the lobby for the range of shows they do. Performances are in Japanese only, with no English supplements available. The respectable side of the house performs two shows per day, excluding Sundays, from noon-3PM quite popular with old folks and 6-9PM; after the shows, the performers still clad in their rather impressive costumes and makeup head out to the street to wave goodbye and pose for pictures with exiting audience members.
Festivals
Flower Festival
This is Hiroshima's biggest festival, begun in 1975 to celebrate the Carp's first baseball championship. There are food vendors and things for sale, but live performances now dominate the program, with comedians and J-pop bands on stages along Heiwa-o-dori. It's the smaller performances that make the Flower Festival worthwhile, though, particularly in the stalls near Jizo-dori, where you might stumble across a phenomenal Okinawan band or a local jazz combo.
Peace Memorial Ceremony
Held each year on the anniversary of the atomic bombing, with many hibakusha in attendance. Ceremonies are held in the morning 8:15AM, the time the bomb was dropped. The air raid sirens sound, followed by a minute of silence, and then appeals for peace by the mayor of Hiroshima. There's also a ceremony in the evening 8PM, when a thousand colorful lanterns are floated down the river in front of the.
Sake Festival
The suburb of Saijo is famous for its sake breweries and this annual boozy blow-out. For the price of entry, attendees can drink their fill of sake from local breweries. In short order, the festival area turns into a wild yet reasonably well-behaved display of public drunkenness involving people of all ages. Outside the festival area, tours of sake breweries are also available, with wood sake cups are available as souvenirs for your visit. JR Saijo Station is just a couple of stops from Hiroshima — you'll be swept up in the crowds as soon as you arrive.
Food Festival
This one's pretty simple — food, glorious food of all kinds, from international delicacies to local favorites, from roasted slabs of meat and seafood to delicious vegetarian-friendly dishes and desserts, served in stalls lining the moat of Hiroshima Castle and parts of Chuo Park. There's a flea market as well, and usually some cultural performances at the castle in the evening.
Hiroshima features the standard array of English teaching opportunities, with branches of major eikaiwa like Geos, AEON and ECC as well as small, niche language schools. The Hiroshima International Center see Contact is a good place to make inquiries, as is a Saturday night at The Shack or Kemby's see Drink.
Mazda is largest employer of foreign personnel in the area, due to their relationship with the Ford Motor Company in Detroit and their manufacturing plants in South America. Contract workers from Southeast Asia and the South Pacific are brought in by Hiroshima-based firms for industries such as ship-building, notably in the nearby city of Kure.
Some non-Japanese work illegally — or under-the-radar — as bartenders or sell jewelry in Nagarekawa, which motivates occasional visa crackdowns see Stay safe.