MiyaJima Island

Today’s trip was to MiyaJima Island, famous for the Tori gate which at high tide seems to float on the water. It was positioned like this so that pilgrims could arrive by boat to Itsukushima Shrine, avoiding treading on the sacred ground of the island itself.

These days, thousands of tourists arrive a day, as we did, having taken the ten minute ferry ride from the mainland after a train down from Hiroshima.

The queue for the shrine was very long so, as we could see that parts of it were being restored under wraps and we are feeling somewhat overdosed on shrines now, we headed uphill and joined the queue for the ropeway, or cable car as we would call it instead.

The 45 minute wait was worth it for the fabulous views of the Sea of Japan, despite the overcast conditions and decidedly nippy wind.

By the time we had got down and warmed up with a coffee and roll in Starbucks, the tide had gone out and it was late afternoon so we headed back to Hiroshima. A few extras give a flavour of the day.

Tonight’s dinner was in a Korean restaurant in a side road opposite the hotel which attracted our attention as we passed by. It was almost empty but they said they could fit us in at the counter. 5 minutes later a whole crowd of young people who had obviously got a group booking arrived to fill the place with laughter and noise and we had a jolly evening listening to their excitement and watching the chefs prepare an excellent range of charcoal-grilled dishes (we had prawns in a spicy sauce and asparagus) and fried breaded food ( we had chicken- neck we think, as you had to suck the succulent flesh from the bones, - and Camembert with honey, accompanied with a local take on Caesar salad.