IN A NUTSHELL: A Day at Miyajima
Streetcars and Ferries We walked to Hiroshima Station to find the streetcar.
If I was very astute I would not have A: walked straight to the exit platform instead of the entrance platform
(a guy had to actually direct me) nor B: been in such a hurry to get the right ticket for Miyajima, that
I completely missed the Street Car - Ferry double ticket one button down. However, we made it on the streetcar,
even managed to get facing seats, and rode to Miyajima. I asked the conductor guy about the hours and found out
the useful (or not-particularly-useful, as you'll find out later) information that although the street cars
only run until midnight or so, the JR trains were running all night. We arrived at
the end of the line, Miyajima, and walked to the ferry station next door. There are apparently two different
ferry companies that charge the same amount, but you can't use one ticket on the other ferry JUST to be annoying.
We met a nice foreign couple on the boat, just passing through with not enough time to stay for the
Fire Festival. I gave them the High Tide times, though. The ferry ride was ridiculously short (maybe
10 minutes) so we were there in no time.
Deer Oh Deer I had heard that miniature deer could be seen at Miyajima, but
I had the impression that maybe one had to go to a special area to see them. Nope! Practically within
a few steps of the station, there were deer, just hanging out among the tourists, completely calm and not frightened.
(Not even particularly aggressive, though we did see a scuffle between two male deer later.)
We looked at them, took pictures, then proceeded to find some lunch. I probably should have checked with
my sister before ordering for both of us, but I was had wanted her to have the experience of a "set meal" with
rice, miso soup, pickled vegetables, etc. We saw some small groups of kids in happi robes carrying a strange
big cylinder between them as they chanted. I've previously only seen people doing that with mini-shrines.
Anyway, I bought some gifts (I wanted to add some weight to my backpack?)
and we decided to follow the map up!
Too Adventurous For Our Own Good Our idea was to follow the exact, mapped
path to the ropeway, so we followed a road, then turned off at what seemed like the right place, onto a very
legitimate-looking smaller side road. When we realized it was going in the wrong direction
around the island, we
decided to take a small (very decidedly NOT legitimate) trail up the mountain in the right direction.
The trail followed the top of the hill so we could sort of see where we were going. However, then
the trail went down and forked. We stayed on the city side of the hill, but soon came to a steeper downward
trail that seemed to go deeper into the mountainous woods, not back along the town. We nervously followed it
for a little while, debating going back when all of the sudden I saw black asphalt in the distance. We had found a road!
What road, we did not know, but we were glad to have found civilization. We both wanted to go different directions and
ended up stopping a Japanese couple to ask. We were soon on our way to the ropeway.
Hungry Deer? We sat at a random stone circular table in the middle of a park
to consult the map. I felt vaguely like King Arthur. Then a deer approached, rather intently. Quicker
than we imagined, it deliberately walked toward Laura, who began safely backing away. However, despite her retreat, she
was not able to save the corner of the map that the deer had wanted to eat. (See picture of Laura and the deer
below. I would have tried to help but, you know, it was a good photo...) We left, somewhat worried that the deer
would continue to follow us, but it seemed to stop at the edge of the road. Following the cute signs up,
Laura noted, "At least the deer didn't eat where we wanted to go."
Laura and a Deer, A Deer Following
Monkeys and a View We found the ropeway (where people were exiting the
free bus there from the town instead of walking, the lazy butts.) It was PRICEY! About $15 for a stinking
ski lift ride! Oh well, shouganai ('nothing to be done,' a phrase I have learned early in Japanese.)
The ride up was pretty of course. At least we got the gondola-type car to ourselves.
At the top, we switched over to another ropeway, but this one was different. Instead of being on a long, upward slope
in our own car, we were on a short, parallel course in a huge car that fit about twenty people. I wondered
for awhile what we were waiting for. I kind of wanted to jump out and take a picture but I was terrified that
the car would leave without me. Irked, I wondered if the lady inside was waiting until we were filled
to capacity, but I realized later that they leave every fifteen minutes. It was a blessing in disguise, though,
since while we waited, I heard a woman say "Saru, saru!" to her child. "Saru" means "monkey" and sure enough
there was a monkey looking at us through the trees. It looked just like the ones we saw near my house.
Then we saw another, and another. One scampered over to appear on one side of the platform then reappeared on
the other. The rest of the monkeys followed suit and soon there were tons all running around
one side of the hill before finally scampering up a trail into the trees. Then they were gone.
The ropeway door closed, then began to move across to the other side. Along the way
we saw a GORGEOUS view of Hiroshima and the inland sea, which is filled with
multitudes of tiny little bumps of islands coming out of the water. On the far side was
"Monkey Hill" another nice view area.
There were lots of friendly warning signs with cute little monkey pictures telling us
what they will and will not eat/steal. However, no monkeys. We had seen the only monkeys we were to see
in Miyajima while waiting for the ropeway.
I Think the Gods Can Hear You At the other side, we took a random trail down and followed the
signs upward. We went up lots of stairs and saw signs that said (in Japanese) "Juice and Beer ahead."
We heard a strange sort of voice... it sounded sort of like a really loud tour guide up above us. We
heard it again as we got closer and the voice sounded more like the amplified recording of a Buddhist
ritual. When we reached the temple, it seemed deserted. I saw a glass case with juice, but no one there
to sell it. We walked further up another set of stairs (pictured below) and actually saw shoes in front of the next temple. Suddenly, out
of nowhere, we heard the voice again. It was clearly coming from inside the temple, but there were megaphones
along the roof so the sound could be heard all around. A fellow, maybe a monk, was singing some sort of
devotion in Japanese, live. I got the impression he had been doing this all day and perhaps was getting
bored with it. Pretty random, though.
Stairs Up to the Megaphone Monk Temple
Upward Until There Are No More Stairs There were stone stairs next to the self-singing
temple so, troopers that we were, we kept climbing. We went up and up and up what had to be dozens of stairs,
maybe even a hundred. We were breathing hard, occasionally catching a nice view,
and felt like we were alone in the wilderness since we had not seen anyone else since before the temple. The trail
seemed like
it would certainly be a challenge for children or the elderly, so no wonder it was deserted. We went up and up
and up. Finally, a fence-type thing came into view on the rock above us and we knew we were getting
near the top. Struggling up the last stairway, we finally reached the summit area, went around a large boulder
and...
- ...there was a restaurant. My eyes nearly popped out of their head. We had climbed and climbed and climbed
and now, here was a little family restaurant? There were kids running around. Some deer even. Was there
an alternate car route up here or something?? Anyway, after finding out that it was less
of a restaurant and more of a warming hut (they were out of the amazake they advertised and seemed surprised we
were asking) we went around the side and up the stairs, like a few others were doing. We walked up to the roof of
the two story building and looked around. It was a 360 degree view! We could see all of
the inland sea, a great deal of the mainland, and most of Hiroshima city. We could just see the
tiny Famous Torii below, barely a red
speck near the shore in the below picture.
We were truly at the
top of Miyajima island!
View From The Top
The Trip Down While at the observation deck (actually
on the map, but we did not realize) we broke out the cookies we had brought. Since they had been
warm when we put them in, the cookies had turned into a giant Mound o' Cookie. So, we broke off chunks
and munched while we journaled and admired the view. We took a different stairwell down (There was really
no other sign of how either the deer, the restaurant, or the kids had gotten up here. Did they really
climb the stairs?) This route was reminiscent of Myst in many ways, including the light bulb lines and random
rock formations. As we went down, I gave a donation to the cutest little tiny shrine. We thought
about checking out all the shrines and temples in the area, but it was actually getting a bit late, so
we just focused on getting back down at a reasonable hour. It seemed like the stairs would NEVER END.
We went down and down so much that my thigh and calf muscles were killing me, even when it did not
seem like we were so much lower. Many times, we caught views of the town and it gradually became closer.
We met some people on the way up. I said to one guy, "It's a long way up!" When we had stopped at a
viewpoint gazebo to rest, we saw that he had turned around and was on his way down.
Finally, we reached the next stop, an elaborate temple. This was really a neat temple full of a variety
of sights. (It was also very reminiscent of the Myst series.) I want to come back
and explore it further since we did not have enough time to go in every single building. Just the path, though,
was quite worth it. Even the stairwell was interesting, having little carved cylinders you could spin on
your way down.
Statues At The Temple
The Torii We reached the bottom at around 5 o'clock.
It was just getting toward dusk, but we still had enough light to take The picture.
It was still within an hour of high tide, so there was plenty of water left to give the floating effect.
In fact, the tide seemed to remain high enough the whole time we were in that area.
The Famous Torii (Gate): One of the Three Most Photographed Spots in Hiroshima
The Fire Festival Booths were setting up, but nothing had started yet. We wandered
around town, bought some pastry-on-a-stick, stowed our bags at the train station, completely failed (my
fault) to buy a torch there, and wandered back to the torii gate area. We missed the beginning of the action, but
caught a lot of it front and center. Men, in robes, chanting and carrying Large, Flaming Torches in their
arms ran back and forth through the crowds lining the street. It was chaotic and potentially dangerous, but what fun!
The men-carrying-giant-flaming-stick traffic jams were the best and people tried to scoot the crowds out of the way so
they did not get burned. Many put their mini-torches up to the bigger torch fires so they could light theirs.
They occasionally hoisted the giant torches up, which looked to be an even harder task, then would take them down and
run to the other side and do the same thing. I got the impression they were carrying around giant cigarettes.
New Year's Eve In Japan? By the time we thought to find a torch of our own to burn, the
festivities seemed to be coming to an end, which I thought was odd. I assumed this would be an all-night thing;
a party
until midnight to bring in the new year. I called my friend to
confirm there was nothing else, but there really wasn't. Instead, everyone headed back to their ryokans, or
the ferry station,
and went home to have dinner (and then to watch "Kohaku" which is a music competition show.) The 40 minutes
of chaotic Men With Fire had been like
nothing I'd ever seen, but my western-raised brain had assumed that if you start a party on New Year's Eve,
then you don't finish until midnight! So, we went back on the ferry (standing in the line for the wrong
one, of course... having two different ferries is just silly) and got back on the streetcars, which were
still running,
to return. We got off downtown and wandered the streets of Hiroshima wondering what was open. What WAS open
on New Year's Eve in Japan? Lots of restaurants were closed, but we found an open fast-food curry place
and so ate there (it was crowded, so it might have been one of a few open) and continued on our journey
to find Something to Do. We debated seeing a movie but before then, we found an open karaoke place. What
better way to bring in the new year than drink kahlua and sing karaoke! The karaoke guy was so nice, too,
explaining all the remote controls and such to us, then saying he would not charge us for that time.
We sang for nearly two hours (everything from Bon Jovi to Shakira to I Will Survive), but it still wasn't
midnight.
A Hotel Happy New Year A Japanese fellow tried to pick us up
on our way home, asking if we wanted to go out for a few drinks. I was friendly enough, but I
was pretty clearly refusing. He was not aggressive. Anyway, I made it back to the hotel no problem
(though Laura was convinced we were lost) but sans cream puffs, since the conbini we stopped at had none.
We flipped on the TV. Found Kohaku. Found a countdown! We watched the countdown and raised invisible glasses
to each other, but the show itself was very odd and sadistic (they kept dousing some scantily dressed
guy with cold water and he would ring a gong a lot while commentators laughed and made observations) so we changed the channel. It was still
several hours before New Year's in the United States and in fact it still would be tomorrow morning. We
fell asleep eventually, ready to wake up before the sun so we could catch Laura's flight home.
