Island of Miyajima

This morning we headed off to the train station by taxi, then hopped on the JR train to Miyajimaguchi (gateway to Miyajima).  From Miyajimaguchi, we boarded a boat to take us to the island.  The island, and the views from the island back to the mainland (which really isn’t mainland because we’re in Japan - which is a bunch of islands), are beautiful.

Looking back toward the town.


And a little further along.


And of part of the island.


I posted a picture on Facebook of a selfie with a deer.  Here’s another one at the same spot.  He’s trying to lick me here.  Actually, all it wanted was my map...to eat.  It was hard to get it to stand still for a photo.

The main thing we saw here was the Itsukushima Shrine.  It’s the only shrine in Japan actually in the water.  The Torii gate leading to the shrine is also in the water, but it’s under renovation/repair, so we couldn’t see it.  This is what we did see of it.



Many smaller buildings.  The tide is out right now.

And of course, the obligatory barrels of sake at the shrine.

We bailed on the climb up to the temple and decided to find a place for lunch and a brew.  Oh, look what we found!  The Miyajima Brewery.

Again, some things are very funny in translation.  This is telling people not to climb over the guardrail.  Haha!

These 2 little guys on the train back to Hiroshima were so cute.

I haven’t told you about the toilets here in Japan.  They are ALL like this.  They might look a little different, and some of the controls are attached to the seat itself, but they operate the same way.  They are made by Toto.

So there’s a flush (the big button), a seat warmer (you can increase or decrease the temperature), a bidet built in, a sprayer that does the job a little closer to the, um, rear...for...you know, a button to play music so people can’t hear what you’re doing, and a water pressure control for the 2 sprayers.  Amazing.

Anyway, thought I would stick that in there.

We went back to the hotel but I decided to go back to the A-bomb memorial to do some of the outside things.  It was quite a hike to it, so the others stayed back.

This is in several places on the sidewalk leading to the park.

  

This is the peace arch and there are inscriptions on plaques in front of it in different languages.  There is a pond here with an eternal flame at the end of the pond.  The dome building is seen at the end.

This is the monument dedicated to the children who were victims of the bomb.

And this is the remnant of the building which is preserved as a world heritage site and a memorial.  The target of the bomb was the Aioi Bridge right next to this building.  It was a T shape, so easy to spot from the air.

And last night was our last dinner together as a group.  Our guide, Alastair, was moving on to Delhi, India, first thing this morning to lead another group there.  Great dinner.  Here’s one of the appetizers.

It’s always a little surprise to see what’s in the little boxes.  In this case, it was flavoured tofu, decorated very nicely.  Sometimes, I don’t want to see what’s in the box.

We said our good-byes to people.  There are 7 of us going to the train station around the same time in the morning, and 6 of us continuing on to the airport.  Turns out a couple of women from Toronto are on exactly the same flights as us.  4 people are headed to Hawaii for a few days, 1 couple is headed back to Tokyo for 2-3 days, then to Hawaii for a few days.  And one couple is headed home to Calgary.  We met some really nice people and as a group, we all got along pretty well.  ‘Til we meet again.

This morning after my shower, I had to take a picture of the “mirror”.  It was all fogged up except for the shape of a small mirror to the right over the sink.  They obviously use some sort of anti-fog.  Cool.

Anyway, we’re off to the airport shortly for our trek back home.  I won’t blog again until we’re home.  Sayonara from Japan.