Day 14 - Day Trip to Myajima Island

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Out at 8.15 this morning and stopped at a 7/11 on the way to the bus stop and bought some apple Danishes and tried the do-it-yourself smoothies which were great. Made our way to the same bus stop as yesterday to get to the Peace Park again, to catch the Aqua Net ferry to Myajima Island. Most people go by train to Myajimaguchi Station and catch the local ferry but from Hiroshima it would have taken us about 2.5 hours compared to 45 minutes on the Aqua Net direct ferry. It costs $40 return and well worth the time saved.

It was a pleasant cruise watching all the different islands going by and we reached Myajima at 10:00. We followed the crowd and saw the famous floating Torii Gate of Itsukushima Shrine. The Torii Gate floating illusion is best at high tide but we won't be in Myajima during those times. However it wasn't too bad at the time we were there. There was a quickly moving queue to enter the Itsukushima Jinja Shrine which offers the direct view to the Torii Gate. There was a long queue to take the photo but everyone was very patient. We made an arrangement with a young couple behind us, to take photos for each other. We left the shrine at 11:15 and took our time getting to the Myajima Ropeway.

It was close to lunch time and we planned to stop for lunch before doing the Ropeway, but no restaurants appeared on the way. We ended up at a shop where the shopkeeper was selling tickets for the Ropeway, and he told us to wait there for the free shuttle, taking you to the first Ropeway station, Kayatani. It saved us a 20 minute walk uphill, so was appreciated. The ropeway was in two parts. The first part was a continuous loop with small carriages for six people going from Kayatani Station to Momijidani Station and the shorter second section had two lines going to and fro to Shishiiwa Station, which is almost the top of Mt Misen. There was a good viewing platform which they called Shishiiwa Observatory. We spent time walking around, taking photos, then sat in the upstairs area of the station and bought a couple of things from the vending machines just to ward off hunger pangs.

It was now 12:45 and Krissy and I decided we should walk to the summit of Mt Misen. Daisy volunteered to look after Oscar and Krissy and I initially walked down, then up again to the summit. The signs indicated 30 minutes. Keeping up with my super fit daughter was a challenge, even though she did wait for me occasionally and we made it up there in well under 30 minutes. The view was magnificent offering almost 360 degree views of the mainland and surrounding islands. We walked down much quicker and met up with Daisy and Oscar back at Shishiwa station. We could hear Oscar crying as we got closer. He had just had a little fall before we got there, so it was good timing for Mama to come and comfort him. It didn't take him long to be happy again. We joined the queue to take the ropeway back down again and thought we'd try again to have a meal, as we still had a couple of hours before catching our ferry back to Hiroshima at 17:50.

It started raining lightly, so we stopped at the first restaurant we saw, Shibaisaryto Mizuha. It had mixed reviews from bad to good, but we were hungry and already seated so we stayed. We ordered three set meals and thought they were delicious, so we were happy with our choice. The meals had eel, oysters, prawn and vegetable tempura plus miso soup and a small dessert and cost $70 for the three meals. We then continued onto the ferry terminal and came across a Starbucks. Since we still had about 50 minutes for our ferry, we decided to stop for coffee and cakes, then got to our ferry with 10 minutes to spare.

Nice, easy ride back to Hiroshima and stopped at a couple of shops along this very long arcade. We bought some supplies for breakfast to eat on the next Shinkansen train to Himeji. We decided yesterday to change our original itinerary. I had booked an overnight ferry from Kita Kyusyu which meant travelling further south to catch the ferry. I decided to was best to cancel the ferry and make our way to Himeji which is close to Osaka, our final destination. Himeji Castle is suppose to be one of the best to visit because it is mainly original, rather than re-built, like many of the others. The ferry idea was because it might be fun, but it was quite expensive and we were going to sail at night, so wouldn't have seen much anyway. I just decided it wasn't worth the expense.

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Photos

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Itsukushima Shrine Torii Gate