Miyajima Island

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We took a ferry to Miyajima Island, not far from Hiroshima. This sacred island is the home of the Itsukushima-jinja Shinto shrine and its famous floating Torii gate (it is in the water, rather than on land). This was because in ancient times, people weren’t allowed to set foot on the island and so entered the shrine by boat through the gate. People still aren’t allowed to be born or die here. We walked through the shrine which had a lot of alcoves of worship, and a ton of children practicing their artistic skills by drawing the buildings around them. It looked much better when the tide was in and the place was surrounded by water.
We took a cable car most of the way up Mt. Misen and climbed the 15 or 20 minutes to the summit. We were hoping to see monkeys who hang out around the station, but it was rainy, cold and misty, and they were nowhere to be seen. It was a nice walk, although when we got to the top all we could see was mist, which was too bad. Still, it was worth the trek. We stopped in a little store back in the village and I bought a wooden statue of a Japanese woman, and Steve got a sake set.
The deer on the island are protected, and they take full advantage of their status. If anyone has been to Marineland and fed the deer there, it is much the same. They follow people around and are very nosy. I was concentrating on taking a picture of the Torii gate when I felt a tug on my shirt and heard Steve laughing. I turn around and there is a deer chewing on the back of my shirt: I had to hit her on the head to get her to stop!
We took the ferry and train back to Hiroshima, and then another train to Kyoto, where we found our hotel and headed to bed.

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