Another blog prepared by Sarah whilst Alan had his afternoon nap. His comments, when he wakes up, will be in Red. Well it was Sunday afternoon so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise really.
I think we had a first in world history last night, Alan didn’t stay up to watch the English soccer on the internet. Probably just as well as today was an action packed day. I would have but I woke up 5 hours too late.
We woke up in our awful smoke smelling room and prepared to visit Miyajima Island. There are two ways to get to the island; 50 minutes by tram and then ferry or 26 minutes by train and then ferry. We opted to take the train although probably the tram would have given us more things to look at, but with our rail passes, the train is free.
We disembarked the train and turned when we heard an Australian accent. We had met a single Sydney lady, Margaret, at the airport both in Sydney and she attached herself to us when we arrived in Osaka to get through immigration and customs. She was then being met as she was joining a tour. It was her tour group we ran into on our way to the ferry. Small world. Their tour group has 22 people, mostly older and mostly from Melbourne. Thankfully the tour organiser gave us some great information on how to exchange a travellers cheque and hopefully when we get to Tokyo we will be successful.
We boarded the ferry almost immediately and after a very cold and breezy 10 minutes, we were on Miyajima Island. The ferry was free for us with our train passes. I knew of and was prepared to meet the tame deer who await the arrival of the ferry, and knew you had to be careful of any paper you’re carrying as they snatch it out of your hands and eat it. The first thing you get when getting on the island is a map and many visitors lose theirs almost immediately. The deer go straight for it. They sneak up behind you quietly and snatch anything out of your hands. But they’re very cute.
After watching the deer for a while, we took a leisurely stroll around to the Ohtorii Gate, the most photographed tourist attraction in Japan. We were lucky as we arrived right on high tide. As we discovered later when the tide went out, the Gate isn’t as pretty when there is very little water around it.
We walked around the Itsukushimajinja Shine which was originally built in 593 and then rebuilt in 1168 and the Gujunoto (Five-Storied Pagoda) and made our way to the Ropeway, which is a gondola system. My parents will be very pleased to know that I was doing a nature walk up part of the mountain. I think Sarah had about 12 heart attacks on our walk up the mountain to the ropeway. Well parts of it were pretty steep after all. The first part of the ropeway runs for 1.1kms and goes up 945 feet and the second goes across to a mountain up another 203 feet. The view from the top would have been spectacular had it not been a hazy day. The view however is better than is shown in the photos though. There are warning signs everywhere to watch your belongings. There are monkeys and although they aren’t interested in cameras, they do take a particular liking to backpacks.
After admiring the view from this point, Alan gave a millisecond thought to walking up the hour round trip to the main lookout. It looked very steep so I gave it a miss. Instead, we took our return trip back down the ropeway. By this stage we were getting rather hungry so we stopped at a corner stand and picked up some beef yakitori on a stick. We sat down to eat so not to make a mess but that lasted no more than a few seconds before a deer decided to come and see what was on offer. As they were just over A$7 each, we decided not to share. We then walked slowly back to the ferry before heading back to our hotel. Before getting here, we decided to stop at Hiroshima station and get our tickets for the train to Tokyo tomorrow. Just as well we did. It would appear that this is a very busy station and the last thing we need is to be delayed tomorrow getting to Tokyo. It is a 5 hour trip.
We had dinner this evening at an Irish Pub a few blocks from our hotel. The food was great, but as Australians we’re not used to going somewhere for a meal and having people smoking right next to us while we’re eating so we couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Trivia for the day…. The taxis around here quite often sit with their rear passenger door open waiting for someone to get in. I would have thought they would want to keep all their doors and windows closed given how cold it is out there.
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