Part III of our trip last weekend was Miyajima Island. To give you some back ground:Miyajima is a small island less than an hour outside the city of Hiroshima. Miyajima is most famous for its giant torii gate, which at high tide seems to float on top of the water. The sight is ranked as one of Japan's three best views.
While officially named Itsukushima, the island is more commonly referred to as Miyajima, Japanese for "shrine-island". This is because the island is so closely related to its shrine, Itsukushima Shrine, in the public's mind. Like the torii gate, the shrine's main buildings are built over water.
Miyajima is a romantic place, best enjoyed by staying overnight at one of the island's ryokan. There are many day tourists, but in the evening the area becomes much quieter and peaceful. There are wild deer on the island that have become accustomed to people. In the day the deer wander around the same sites as the tourists, and in the evening they sleep along the walking paths.
We left in the morning for Miyajima and got there around 10 am. We walked around the island and took lots of pictures and saw the shrine that the island is most famous for. It was very pretty.
One of the strangest things about the island is the deer. Deer are the messengers of the gods so they are not hunted in Japan and on a small island like Miyajima, that means they are very used to people. Here I am trying to get my map back from one that decided it looked like a tasty snack.
Miyajima is also the birthplace of the rice paddle. (Is it not just a spoon?) But either way, here is the worldest largest. You know me and the world's largest anything- gotta make time for that on my itinerary!
There are many hiking trains up to the peak of Mount Misen on the island, but we were pretty beat after 5 days of vacation so we had lunch, shopped for some souvenirs and headed back to the train station to head back to Atsugi. What a great trip!
