Miyajima

We headed to the famous island Miyajima in order to recuperate from the historical beating Hiroshima's museums and monuments provided the day before.  We took the streetcar line to the island, which gave us about an hour's ride through Hiroshima suburbs.  It was a very interesting ride.  We saw insane apartment buildings, mountains, shopping centers, schools, and finally the little waterfront town that boasts two ferries to Miyajima.

We bought a 2-day streetcar, ferry, and ropeway pass when we arrived in Hiroshima the other day, and we put it to good use on Miyajima.  It was an insane deal, plus we got to ride the historical streetcars and thumb our nose at JR, the national transportation system.  JR is awesome, don't get me wrong, but this felt like shopping local.  It seemed important, and it was fun.

The pass got us on the trolley, then across the water on the ferry.  As you approach the island, you see the famous o-torii gate standing in the water, a good distance from the shore.  It is 16.6 meters high, about the equivalent of a four-story building.  The current gate is the eighth one, built in 1875.  I suppose they periodically rot in the water and have to be replaced.     

Below is the Itsukushima Shrine.  It is built in the water at the base of the mountain, because in the Shinto religion, mountains are considered Gods.  It was inconceivable to build on the island itself, as it is one big mountain chain.  The shrine honors three Munakata Goddesses: Ichikishima-hime, Tagitsu-hime, and Tagori-hime.  They are Goddesses of the sea, traffic safety (travel safety), fortune, and accomplishment.

The shrine is a wonderfully beautiful structure that words just can't capture.  It is made up of a main shrine, a Noh drama stage (the brown building on the right side of the picture), music rooms, halls, and secondary shrines.  Everything is connected by walkways that span about 300 meters.  The bright vermilion color is a traditional shrine color, historically thought to keep evil spirits at bay.  It is just remarkable to walk around this ancient shrine (first built in 593, remodeled in 1168), and over the ocean, no less.

A view of downtown Miyajima

Another 5-story pagoda

After the shrine, we walked through downtown Miyajima, and through some mountains (meeting more tame deer along the way), until we reached the ropeway.  While Gifu's ropeway is a huge joke - you can see the station from the bottom of the mountain not more than 5 minutes up - Miyajima's ropeway is the real deal.  Hiking the mountains can take 3-6 hours depending on the course you take, and how high up you want to go.  The ropeway pictured below goes up for about 10 minutes, and then you transfer to another ropeway that goes across some mountain chasms and up a bit more for perhaps 5 minutes.  It was an incredibly windy day, and we got up with no trouble, but when we tried to come down, we had to wait for the wind to die down.  And then once we were in the higher, more dangerous ropeway, there was an additional 700kg on each side of the car weighing it down.  Kowai (scary)!     

Once we were off the ropeway, we hiked straight up for about 30 minutes.  We came out by a temple and shrine complex.  It was very beautiful, nestled in mountains and flowers.  According to local ancient lore, in the building pictured to the left, there is flame that never goes out.  Where is it, you may ask?  Well, it's hidden in that black pot-like thing behind the devotional candles.

Pictured below is the main part of the Miyama shrine.

As we hiked further up the mountain, we came across small devotional offering places.  Placed inside: canned pineapple.  What an awesome God!  Unfortunately we couldn't get good photographic evidence due to sun glare.

We reached the top of the mountain and climbed up into the Mt. Misen observatory, 535m above sea level.
The view was spectacular:

On the way down, Matt met a special friend.  This little deer had somehow wandered almost to the top of the mountain, all by itself.  I believe it probably followed people, thinking "food."  After our encounter, it continued to go up, and we continued to go down.


Not long after, we met the buck.  He was moving up the mountain rather leisurely.  When we saw each other, we all stopped.  I snapped two pictures, as he posed, and then we considerately went our separate ways.  It was certainly an experience to be a few yards away from that kind of animal.

When we reached the main shrine again, we were greeted by a most surprising sight: low tide.  The entire gate was visible, and people scampered around on the sand around the pillars.  I was very excited to see this.  One of the reasons I came to the island was to see if the water went out at low tide or not.  By comparing the pictures of high and low tide, you can see that the high tide is surprisingly deep even where the gate stands (not all that far out to sea, really).  It's definitely at least 10 feet deep.  Not unheard of for diving in the deep end of pools, but deep nonetheless.  Seeing the entire gate made me admire the architects and builders all the more.

After seeing the gate for the second time, we walked through the scores of shops that line the avenues.  We picked up miscellaneous souvenirs for friends, family, and work colleagues and fed troublesome deer sweet potato skins.  Matt ate tons of tasty manjou, a traditional sweet of a tasty paste baked inside a leaf-shaped bread, and I had mandarin orange ice cream.  Then we headed back via ferry and streetcar to downtown Hiroshima, where we went out for the best Korean food ever!