Floating Shrine

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seafood

Today we visited Itsukushima island (or Miyajima as it's more commonly referred to), which is a short ferry ride from the mainland (in Hiroshima prefecture somewhere, I forget). It's a quaint place, inhabited by about 2000 people who share the island with many deer similar to those we encountered in Nara.

Miyajima is most famous for its floating shinto Torii shrine. Fortunately for us, it was an absolutely glorious day when we joined the throngs of tourists all making the pilgrimmage to the shrine. The shrine is huge, given that you can see it from the mainland. The size of it really hits you when you see the ant-like people taking photos next to the shrine. There were quite a few people getting married there as well, so I guess it must be popular.


We didn't stay there too long, as we wanted to make the Mazda tour in Hiroshima that afternoon (which is free, and English tours are available) That was pretty neat, we got to tour the mazda museum (which is bascially a chronological history of their production line) and briefly visit the factory to see the car-making process in progress.

That evening we ended up in Osaka (JR passes are so useful),and went to a yaki-nikku resturant...totally oishii! Afterwards we meandered around dotonbori marvelling at the futuristic tackiness of it all.

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