(Updated Nov 2) Saturday October 24 Miyajima

Saturday October 24 Hiroshima. Clouded, 18 C, no wind. Island Miyajima, whole day.

One of the most attractive sites of the top 3 in Japan. This will be a day of traveling with almost all kind of transportations. We go by trains to the harbor, than the boat (no additional charges for us because of the JR Japan Railway passes), 2 cable cars and than a lot of walking up to the mountain top.

The boat takes us to the island and during the trip the Torri in the water can be seen already. Behind the torri the shrine and temples become visible. On the island a speaker warns us for the deer on the island, they are wild and its mating season. But already after the first steps we run into these “wild” animals. They are between all the people, inspecting bags for food. People pet them and take pictures. Nothing wild to me.

We walk towards the shrine, which is largely build on poles in the sea. Looks very nice. The large pagoda a little climb to the left is nice too. We around the shrine and eventually we walk through a nice forest towards the ticket counter for the cable cars. Its a nice ride over the top of the trees, that are getting nice colors due to the autumn. At the top, which “should” have monkeys we see a sign in English “Moneys are gone in the forest for eating”. So no monkeys on the top.

The climb to the top, starts with a long decent, so we know it will be a longer climb to the top when it starts to become up hill again. In the middle are a 3 temples, one of them having continues a fire in the fireplace. The eternal fire, where even the flame of the Olympic games was lit with. On the top there is a look out, and we have nice view. Although the weather is not so nice, very clouded so its not great for pictures or film. We enjoy the view anyway. In fact, the climbing might be more exhausting with a lot of sun, so this might have been the best “solution” anyway ;-)

In the cable car down, we meet very nice people from Canada and have interesting conversations with. They are here for the 7th time, because their son has a fiance here. So interesting to hear there stories and experience with Japan. Even more up close and personal than we, with a family in law in Japan. They also tell last year they went to Amsterdam and we told about our beautiful experience in Canada, when we went camping in the rocky mountains.

At the bottom in the town again, we enjoy the sun going down, thus make pictures of the torri in the sea and eat in a restaurant. Specialty from here is Okonomiyaki, vegetables, prawns, noodles and eggs on a iron hot plate prepared. Does not thrill us, but its OK for the day. The journey back on the boat and train is all in the dark, as around 5pm the sun is gone here.

...more text will follow later. Greetings, Marcel mailto:PhotoKingH@gmail.com