Miyajima a.k.a. Shrine Island.

The day after I was in Hiroshima, I went to Miyajima, which translates as Shrine Island, although its true name is Itsukushima. I have no idea what that translates as. From ages and ages ago this island has been sacred, I think for all the lovely flowers plants and animals which seem to flourish here. Because of that they decided to build a shrine on it, but not so much as on it, as off it. The island is sacred, so peasants and commoners were not allowed to set foot upon it. The solution was to build the shrine in the sea, supported by wooden struts from the ground. Just in case you haven't read all of my blog (or if I forgot to mention earlier) temples are Buddhist and shrines are Shinto, which is a native Japanese religion, although they seem to mix from time to time. To get to a shrine, you always have to go through the torii (Shinto gate thing,) which is why they built a massive one out in the sea off the island so people could go through it on a boat. It is the first thing you see on your way to the island (although sadly the ferry couldn't fit through it) and is pretty much one of the most famous sights of Japan after Mr. Fuji-san.

Warning: Many photos of pretty much the same thing follow. It was really difficult to decide if I liked it more at high or low tide, am or pm, tree or no tree, so I decided to include a wide selection for your viewing pleasure.
I got there at about 8 in the morning, as I intended on spending the entire day on the island. The tide was about half way in, and it was probably minus a million degrees because it was so windy.

About 10 minutes after I got to this view point, another ferry load had arrived with a school trip of children. This is pretty much the downside to being a tourist in Japan- you are never alone. I was glad I got there early, as afterwards it was all noisy and like this:
This shrine is one of the 3 sacred sights of Japan according to some confucian scholar. I haven't seen the other two, but they've got a hard act to follow.

I met my flatmate Yoshi a bit later on and whilst waiting for high tide (11.55am) we decided to have a wander and finish eating our breakfast. This was more of a challenge than you may think. Deer. Although you aren't allowed to feed them here, they will try anything to feed themselves. One ate the map out of my pocket (it was free so no worries there) and seemed really intent on having my raisin pan (like a big bread roll with raisins and currents.) In order to stop this breakfast theft, I held the bread high out of deer reach, not realising how this made me a target for an attack from above. A great big eagle (or black kite as I have just learned from the translation from Japanese) came out of nowhere, grabbed my bread, narrowly missing my face, and flew off. I was in quite a state of shock, as was Yoshi. Here is a diagram to show exactly how it happened. I apologise for using an eagle instead of a black kite on the diagram, I didn't realise there was a difference until just now.

Here it is again with some interesting clouds:
And again with some barnacles in the foreground:
When it got to high tide, we finally went in the shrine. It was rather beautiful:
I had to wait for ages to take this photo without anyone in it: Luckily the Japanese tourists are lovely and considerate when they see that you want to take a photo. They were also queuing (yes that's right) to have their photo taken in front of it. That is something else I love about Japan, if you ask someone to take a photo of you, they usually take a good photo, with the thing you want in the background, beautifully composed.


After the shrine at high tide, we decided to walk up the mountain to get a great view of some other islands This helpful sign pointed us to where we could get a cable car. The person who wrote it clearly had a sense of humour.
We were going to walk but felt lazy and decided to get the cable car "to save time."

Here is the view from the top:

And on our way back down (on foot) Here was the view of the torii. As you can see the tide was well on its way out. People were on their way out to it. To touch it brings good luck I believe.
We went out to it,

I touched it,

Took some more photos (naturally...)
then decided that to kill time before sunset, we would go to onsen to soak away our aches and pains from the tiring mountain climbing (yeah right.)

We came out just at the right time for sunset which was beautiful. I would have hung around for more photos but It was colder than the Antarctic, so we rushed straight back on to the ferry and went for soba.