Iwakuni is a Marine Air Base about 40 miles south of Hiroshima. The town surrounding it is a mess of factories and getting anywhere is a complete pain in the bum. The traffic is terrible even though it is technically a country town. This has a lot to do with the fact that driving in Japan makes no sense and stopping in the road is encouraged, lights are plentiful, and making a right hand turn is like finding a cockroach in your can of pringles...it sucks. Despite all this, Iwakuni has a totally awesome castle and one of the coolest bridges in Japan. Since it was raining, we decided not to pay to walk across it, but the ribbon bridge is really pretty cool. The engineering and construction of this bridge is truly amazing since nails were not part of the equation when it was originally built.
By far, the highlight of our culinary adventures on this trip was eating at the chicken shack. This was not what I expected. The name for this place is really mountain bandit chicken, which is much more fitting. It ended up being up in the mountain outside of Iwakuni in a collection of shrines, stores, and little bistros. We ate in the main restaurant which was this big open flame on which a guy was grilling endless pieces of chicken. The place was filled with smoke from the BBQ and the air thick with the smell of bubbling juices. The food was incredible. We got to bust out our ever improving Japanese (though it still stinks) much to the delight of the people there. It really helped to be able to read the menu now that our character skills are growing. Certainly worth the trip out there, even the kids ate a ton, which was truly amazing.