Miyajima Island
We haven't had an internet connection in a few days, and even now I am internet-less, but spending the time I have before our next train to write a little in the station. I'll post whenever I get a chance.
We spent two great days in Miyajima. Actually, it was one full day with two partial days of traveling in and out. I loved Miyajima. It is the "shrine island" and the whole thing is considered sacred. No one is allowed to be born or die on the island. They take very pregnant people and very sick people off the island at night just in case. Or so the guidebook says. We stayed mostly to the main part of the island, focusing on some of the larger Shinto shrines. The whole island was very peaceful, not full of people, even though it is one of Japan's three traditionally designated "great scenic spots."
Our first stop was to Itsukushima-jinja Shrine. It is the largest shrine on the island and one of the most sacred in Shinto. It was built right on the water and appears to float during high tide. The big famous gate to the shrine is out in the water as well. We were able to go to Itsukushima-jinja early in the morning before the first ferry boat arrived from the mainland. There were only three other people there and it was very quiet and peaceful. Lovely. We took a TON of pictures, so hopefully we'll have a chance to upload them soon.
One thing I should mention about Miyajima is that it is full of miniature deer. Little half-size deer just walking around, totally tame and uninterested in people. They will steal the paper from your back pocket if you leave it there, but other than that they just walk around eating leaves and seaweed and whatever else. And they are little....it is weird. I saw a deer go down stairs, which was weird. And a deer on a bridge. A deer on the beach. It's all very odd, but after a while it just seems normal. I didn't particularly like having deer wander around me, even if they were shorter than me.
From Itsukushima-jinja we walked around the island just to explore. We ended up at the second biggest shrine, Daigan-ji Temple. (Shinto = shrine, Buddhist = temple, fyi.) This was probably my favorite place on the island. It is huge, more like a temple complex than a single temple. You have to walk up a very very long set of stairs lined with stone statues to reach the main entrance. The handrail in the middle of the stairs is cool, too. It had these little rotating spool things with writing on them. I wished throughout our trip at the temple that I knew what it all meant. After hiking up the stairs, winding through paths with more statues, we made it to the main temple area. There were four or five different temples, all for different gods or spirits or something. Yeah, again, I wish I knew what it all meant. It was just very pretty. Some of the shrines to the gods had canned fruit, mostly pineapple in light syrup, placed inside. Wonder why.... The Daigan-ji Temple is up in the mountains a bit, very secluded and special. The weather was overcast and a little misty, which added to the ambiance.
Our next stop was to the Ropeway up to Mt. Misen and the monkey park. The ropeway was very very loooooooong. We had to switch cars in the middle to get on a second ropeway to the top. We didn't really know what was at the top, or why we were going, it was an adventure! Turns out the top is a monkey park, although all the monkeys had gone to the forest to search for food. I think winter is not the season to see crazy monkeys, which is fine with me. I don't like monkeys. They steal your belongings and can be mean. There were signs everywhere warning you not to feed the monkeys and don't look them in the eye! Haha. We didn't have to deal with that. At the top of the ropeway there is a path leading you about one mile STRAIGHT UP THE MOUNTAIN to a shrine. The thing is, you don't know you are about to hike one mile STRAIGHT UP THE MOUNTAIN. You think you are taking a nice leisurely stroll through the woods. You can't see how far the path is going, or how steep the slope until it is too late. You think, "oh, it can't be much farther, we've been hiking straight up forever," but you are wrong. It just keeps going, and your poor fat American legs can hardly take it. It was very pretty once we got to the top, though, and we got to see another small temple.
As I think I posted about earlier, I hurt my knee on day two and haven't been able to go down stairs ever since. I take one stair at a time, putting all the pressure on my right knee. This hiking nonsense was none too good for the knee situation. Poor Jon had to help me down the hill and on the steps. Even walking down a slope started to be too much and I would turn to walk sideways. It wasn't much fun. Stupid knee.
From the Ropeway we went into "downtown" and had lunch, shopped for snacks and souvenirs, and headed back to the hotel for a little rest. (This hotel, like the one in Atami, had two twin beds in the room. Very 1950's sitcom.) Then across the ferry to Miyajima-guchi (the town on the mainland across from Miyajima) to look for dinner. Everything on Miyajima closes by 5. It is a little ridiculous. Our hotel kept harassing us about dinner. Do you want dinner here? Did you make reservations? We only have one reservation left, do you want it? Did you eat dinner, because we didn't make a reservation for you? They are a little obsessed, which we thought was weird, until we realized there is no where else to eat AT ALL after 5pm. The first night we ate at the hotel and it was VERY fancy. Seven or eight courses, sashimi, grilled blowfish, seafood custard, smoked oysters, etc. We figured we would fend for ourselves the second night, which is why we took the short 7 minute ferry ride over to the mainland.
Overall, Miyajima was lovely. So serene, so beautiful, so peaceful. It was a delightful respite from the big cities we have been in so far and will go to in the future. I would 100% come back to Miyajima.
Now here are some other random pictures of our day of travel to and stay in Miyajima.
Mt. Fuji! From the train...
