Today we got to nice and early to head to Miyajima Island! This is a small island about an hour long streetcar ride and 10 minute ferry from Central Hiroshima. It has beautiful coastline, ancient shrines and temples, gorgeous mountains, and a ton of fun things to do and sights to see. One of the ladies in the SUPA class a year under David’s, Kristine, actually lived near Hiroshima for a few years and sent us wonderful suggestions on how to conquer Miyajima, giving us some great advice and helping adjust our itinerary to get the most out of our short time. We can’t say enough how much we appreciate her time and effort into helping us!
Before Miyajima, however, we first had breakfast plans for the first time this trip. When we first arrived at the hotel, they offered a full Japanese breakfast for a reasonable price. We knew we wanted to see what a Japanese breakfast looked like, so we actually booked this for our final day in Hiroshima. We got down to breakfast around 9:00 and were instantly blown away by the huge variety of foods: fried chicken, stews, japanese eggrolls, fried udon noodles, chilled soba noodles, marinated tofu, chilled soups, Japanese style eggs, poached eggs, greens marinated in vinegar, pastries, rice, salads with dressing, sausages, juices, coffee, tea, delicious small bite desserts, and so much more. We loaded our plates with basically one of everything and sat down to eat. Though it was only around $10 USD a person, this was one of the more expensive sit down meals we have had, so we wanted to really take it in. We were surprised how many people (mostly europeans) came in and grabbed maybe a pastry or a scoop of eggs and then left without getting their moneys worth or trying some interesting foods. David’s favorite part of breakfast was the Japanese eggrolls, and Caitlyn’s was the salad. Salad not included (David says this doesn’t count as real food), it was also the eggrolls! It tasted flakey and crispy and similar to a Chinese eggroll but with Japanese flavors. We ate and drank juice until we were about to burst.
We went back to our room quickly to grab our bags and headed off! One long and confusing streetcar ride and we were finally at the ferry depot.
We quickly found the ticket booth, purchased our round trip tickets, and were lucky enough to be there at the perfect time to get on the ferry.
Remembering our experience on the Staten Island Ferry, we quickly found a good spot with a view on the correct side of the ship, staking our claim. We were right to do this, as people first explored the boat before crowding to the edges to see the sights. The ride was breathtaking, but we were eager to get off after seeing the beautiful small town along the coast and rest of gorgeous Miyajima.
We headed to the right side of the island straight off of the boat to be efficient in seeing the sights (thanks Kristine!), and saw a long row of small shops filled with trinkets and lots of interesting foods. Caitlyn made a bee-line to a statue she saw that looked significant (of course).
We had two temples in this area on our itinerary, so we figured we would knock those out first before some of our more time-consuming activities. We began our walk, and while funneling through the medium-sized crowd, we were stopped in our tracks by a massive deer, complete with full grown antlers, walking through the streets like one of the people. Wanting to respect the deer as a wild animal (Holy sh*t the number of people who did not seem to realize that this IS A WILD ANIMAL), we sat down on a ledge, hoping to observe it. To our happy surprise, the deer came right up to David and began smelling his empty water bottle and his lap and pockets to see if he had anything good to eat. David, remembering the countless videos he has seen on YouTube of deer chasing people around and head butting children, let the deer do what it wanted, and didn’t go out of his way to disrupt or touch it. Right after this, a man came up and started patting the deer on the back. It didn’t love this, so it kept walking, but we kept thinking how this could have gone so poorly. We let the deer move along, and kept walking. Lo and behold, the deer came right up to the side of Caitlyn and started walking with her! It was an unbelievable experience. Soon after, we found many more deer, many of which walked alongside us in the crowds, seemingly very familiar with humans.
Before arriving at our first stop, we admired Ishidatami from the distance.
We then arrived at the Itsukushima Jinja Higashi Kairo temple, a beautiful horizontally spanning bright orange temple with tons of walkways to explore above the water (though it was low tide, so mostly above the sand). We went through, marveling at the view of the ocean and the gorgeous temple.
We made it through, all while looking over at the colossal Ishidatami- an impressive red gate sitting on the sea floor, suspended not by penetrating into the sea floor, but sitting on its own massive weight. Thankfully, as mentioned, it was low tide. This gave us great access to getting a few hundred feet closer to Ishidatami rather than having to see it from the shore.
We of course had to ask someone to take a picture for us! Take one:
Maybe you could get a little closer? So you can see us better?
While yes, you did get closer, it would be nice to be able to see the shrine we trekked through pools of water to see…
Beautiful stone lampposts and statues lined the streets, giving this small town some big charm. We did some searching on our next destination, and decided to do a drive-by temple viewing of the other temple on our list before heading up to the mountain for one of our big activities of the day: getting to the top of Mount Misen.
We walked the 30-40 minutes from where we were through a nice wooded area, upwards along the increasingly sloping path towards the bottom of the cable car/ropeway entrance. Paying a reasonable fee, we got round trip ropeway tickets. We climbed some steps and stepped into a four-person cable car alongside two strangers, set to go up the mountain.
We arrived at the end of the line, only to realize that this only brings you maybe 70% of the way up, and there is a transfer line onto a larger cable car holding a few dozen people to get the rest of the way up. We were very lucky and got there just in time to catch this one and not have to wait 15 minutes. This was a quicker journey, bringing passengers almost to the top.
Once disembarking, we followed signs that either offered a 30 minute hike to the summit (not much higher up, but you have to go down a bit to get to a path bringing you right back up and a little bit higher), or a short walk to the lookout point. We chose the lookout point as we had more things on our schedule, and with much closing in Miyajima around 5:00 or 6:00pm, we wanted to get the most out of our day. We rounded the corner, walked a bit, and up some stairs, and were rewarded with some unbelievable views of the island itself as well as the mainland of Japan and countless mountainous islands jutting out from the sea. We spent a good bit of time here, absolutely dumbfounded by the scenery, before heading back down the cable cars to finish up our time in Miyajima.
We got super lucky again, grabbing the cable car as the last 2 people on before a 30 minute wait this time (the person behind us looked shocked and hurt to be left behind). We made our way back down the mountain and to the central temple area, grabbing a Japanese cheesecake pastry on our way to share (so tasty!). As we got back down, we we ran into more deer
Our next stop was the Miyajima Public Aquarium! It wasn’t hard to find it with all of the signs, but we were happy to find a vending machine along the route that dispensed one of our favorite drinks in Japan- sours! Of course we had to try out. This absolutely needs to be a thing in America, but first we would of course have to change our public drinking laws to be as lenient as Japan to really appreciate it.
Anyways, we arrived at the aquarium quite easily, and paid the tiny fee for entrance. This was a wonderful, two floor aquarium filled with beautiful exhibits, tons of colorful fish, and a few exhibits with mammals and other interesting animals. As we walked through, announcements would play every 30 minutes or so saying “Announcing today’s feature – penguin feeding!” Or “the sea lion show!” Or “otter feeding!”. While we had so much we wanted to see, there was no way we could miss any of these. The penguin feeding was fun, especially watching the creative ways the penguins tried to get the zookeepers to see and feed them. The sea lion show was unreal – we were both so impressed with how well trained the two sea lions were with balancing objects, catching rings around their necks, jumping into the air, and waving and clapping at the audience. The otters were cute as well, but it was a little hard to see the tiny holding areas and get a good view. We saw any and everything the aquarium had to offer, and still did it at a pace that we didn’t feel like we breezed through everything. We even ended up at the indoor pool with starfish, sea cucumbers, and other critters that you actually got to reach in and touch! We got out just a few minutes before closing time, feeling very happy that we got to enjoy our time and see it all.
We then spent the next hour or so exploring the town, going in to shops, and buying a miso butter oyster for each of us (they were GIANT – like 3x a large oyster you would find in Virginia). The oysters were delicious and we loved the miso flavor.
We jumped around some shops for fun, took in a few more of the sights, and eventually decided to head back as the ferry travels progressively more infrequently the later it gets.
We boarded the Ferry and departed back towards mainland. Shortly after leaving, we watched eerie white clouds roll over the mountains, bringing a beautiful sight to Miyajima in the distance.
We got back after the hour tram ride and found a nearby izakaya we decided to pop into for dinner as this easily has become our favorite way to have a meal. We were pretty happy with the food, and then we we did strike up a coversation with a U.K. born New Zealander for about 45 minutes which kept us busy. He was a lovely guy named John who does a ton of travel in between practicing as a doctor in primary care. We talked about travel as well as PA’s role in U.K. Healthcare, and future countries we are going to be visiting. Our server had an amazing American accent and vocabulary, but totally did not believe us when we complimented him. He didn’t expand much on how he learned English, but said something about practicing with T.V. He was so kind, and when we left, he thanked us for learning some Japanese as he felt that was hugely respectful when you go to visit a country to learn at least some of their language.
We started heading home when we realized our stomachs were still growling having only shared a handful of the small skewers due to our engaging conversation. We decided to split a ramen on the way home, and found a spicy ramen joint seeming popular with locals. It was tasty, just the right amount of spice, and offered enough differentiation from other ramen bowls that we felt we were trying something different.
Back home, and although exhausted from a huge day, we worked on the blog some and tried to work on booking our Shinkansen tickets. As it was late in the evening, we could only make a request for a ticket for which we would get an email confirmation the next morning at 8am. While we normally like to be more prepared with our travels, we knew that trains to Fukuoka run every 12-15 minutes, and decided to put the worry out of our minds as we fell into a deep, deserved sleep.
Caitlyn’s thoughts of the day: as much as we had been enjoying all of the cities we visited in Japan, it was really nice to have a break from the concrete jungle and get in some time in nature and with a change of pace.
David’s thoughts of the day: no real thoughts or insight…I am just really happy we came here. This has been one of the best days so far on the trip.
Steps walked: 20,096
Miles walked: 9.49
Total miles walked in Hiroshima: 17.49
Bluming Travelers 