Hiroshima continued: Miyajima

Miyajima temple and torii gate.

After our visit to the Peace Museum we jumped back on the street car and headed towards Miyajima harbor to catch a ferry to the island of Miyajima, just 30 minutes outside of Hiroshima. Another perk of the rail pass is that it covers rides on Japan Rail's Miyajima ferry as well. When we arrived at the dock a ferry was preparing to leave. The attendant barely glanced at our passes and instead yelled at us to run. So we ran onto the ferry as the very last passengers before it pushed off.

Miyajima is most famous for its floating temple and torii gate. Neither is literally floating, but they appear to float at high tide since they are built on stilts. At low tide when the water recedes you can walk right out to the gate. We were lucky enough to arrive as the tide was going out and were able to see both before we left.

Floating torii gate at high tide.

The other main features of Miyajima are its natural beauty (rated by a medieval Japanese scholar as one of the most beautiful spots in Japan), its deer and its food (fresh conger eel, oysters and maple leaf bread).

After visiting the torii gate and taking some pictures we went in search of lunch. On the island there is one main market near the dock with a host of restaurants and souvenir shops. A few people do live on the island (we walked through several tiny neighborhood streets), but for the most part this area seemed geared at tourists. No problem there though as it was charming. We settled on a family run eel restaurant where we got an udon/grilled eel set. I wasn't a huge fan of the eel myself, but my friend said it was very good.

Steamed eel buns "Always makes you smile!"

This restaurant had a fan.

After lunch we explored the island. Every view was beautiful and I wish we had had time for a real hike there, but instead we wandered, enjoying the scenery and visiting a temple here and there. It helped that the weather remained a striking combination of bright sunlight threatened by storm clouds in the distance.

We also took time to play with the deer which were everywhere. The more famous place to see deer in Japan is Nara, the difference being Nara has an actual deer park where you can feed the deer and it is more accessible from Kyoto and Tokyo. On Miyajima the deer roam across the whole island and are not supposed to be fed. There are numerous signs warning tourists not to feed the deer in myriad languages, but it's clear they were largely ignored. We caught one deer persistently loitering outside a restaurant and another boldly nosing in tourists' pockets.

After walking back from the temple we spent a little more time eating our way through the market. My favorite would have to be the fresh grilled oysters cooked in their shells with cheese — delicious! I was scared to try them at first, but my friend insisted and I'm glad she did. We also bought a set of the different maple breads made on the island. Unfortunately they weren't maple flavored breads, but maple leaf shaped breads with a variety of fillings — red bean, chocolate, custard, espresso.

For our final excursion we returned to the torii gate now at low tide. The stream of people walking out to its pillars looked almost like a pilgrimage, all of them so small in the ocean's emptied basin.

Catching a late afternoon ferry back to Hiroshima, we just had time to stop by Hiroshima Castle before continuing back to the hostel, exhausted and full.

Hiroshima Castle