(Day 12) Island Princess!

After an exquisite sleep in our luxe hotel, we zoomed off to Miyajima, half an hour west of Hiroshima. Miyajima (literally "shrine island") has been celebrated as a sacred island and one of Japan's three most scenic views. It is most famous for Itsukushima Shrine, which, together with its large wooden torii (gate), stands in the ocean during high tide. Deer move around the island freely, and so do monkeys on top of Misen, the island's highest mountain. (Thanks Japan-guide.com!) Sounds lovely right? Since I have a picture of the torii on my kitchen wall (thank you, Ikea), I felt the need to see it in person (just like all those Eiffel Tower pictures in my house). But first, breakfast!


An assortment of sammiches from tomato to tuna.

We got off at Miyajimaguchi (mouth of Miyajima) and did the brief walk to the ferry. Along the way, this creature greeted us and wished us well on our journey.


Aw, muffin.




Notice the smiling obachans? I didn’t, but I do now.






Uwaaa! We are almost there! Does it look familiar to you now?

It was still morning, so the island wasn’t super crowded yet. Yeesh – it was hot though. Does the sun over Japan mistake it for the equator? Yes, I think so. This day though, I came prepared and wore only a tunic tank. Take that sun! Ha ha! And then it burnt me.




Here is one of the excessively friendly deer they warned us about. They were scattered absolutely everywhere on the island and they love to eat paper. Who knew?


Punks, hanging around.


And who might this lovely lady be? Only the fairest (literally…I’m white y’all) on the isle of Miyajima.

While Mother opted to stay up on the shore, I made the trek down to the murky beach and got up close and personal with my kitchen’s torii.


Lookie…a split second where it didn’t have a million tourists milling around it and posing.

Since the tide was out, I went as far as I could out to sea past the torii and breathed in the salty-seaweed smelling air.






The Itsukushima Shrine – tide out. Apparently it looks really cool when the tide is in because everything looks like it is floating.

Mother took a picture me touching the torii and then I headed back up to sit with her in the shade. When I arrived back to her, she was surrounded by no less than six deer just sitting and hanging out with her. I’m sure they could still smell their Manitoba brethren on her clothes.



We were just relaxing in the shade when I had a wet, warm something pushing me in the back. Ew! It was a deer nuzzling his head against me. Sick. He went away though, when some poor, unsuspecting Japanese man dropped his pamphlet and had to battle with the deer to get it out from between his teeth. Fun and games.

The island held a few surprises though, as I noted when this group came by…




Can’t you just feel the crackling, desert-like heat?

Other than viewing the torii and staring out over the beauteous nature before us, we weren’t too interested in climbing Mt. Misen or paying to enter yet another shrine so as the tide starting coming in, we started our return to the ferry, walking through the shopping area and coming up dry. But one last look at the torii before we say goodbye…





We picked up some small snacks (naturally) at the shoppe before boarding the ferry again. Let’s begin our long journey back to Kyoto, ne? Sayonara Miyajima!



Before boarding the bullet train, I bought my first ekiben! Ekiben is a station (eki) packaged meal (bento).


Ehhh…not the greatest Japan food I’ve had by far.

Arriving back in Kyoto safe and sound, we checked back into our ryokan but this time we reserved a Japanese-style room.




It was small, but comfortable and we had our bathroom.

By the time we had re-settled, it was time for dinner so we headed to Kyoto station and settled on a small Italian place with a waiter who just kept on yapping and yelling, even when doing the most mundane tasks. This is actually quite common in most restaurants in Japan, in some form or another. I ordered a pizza that arrived a little less than satisfactorily. Blah.


Eggplant and bacon sounded promising enough, but half of it was puffed and burnt. The holes were poked in my yours truly.

Tomorrow Mother and I head on our last adventure together to the wilds of Kobe – the city of BEEF. Sadly, we do not sample any. Boo.