Miyajima and Back

Only a 20-kilometer train ride then a short ferry hop away from Hiroshima lies Miyajima, a small island claiming “Third Best View in Japan” as well as another Guinness treasure: the World’s Largest Spatula. Sign us up.As our ferry approached the island, the dreary weather lent a mysterious air to the steep green mountain’s temple- and shrine-bedecked foothills. Miyajima, the summit of which is Mt. Misen, carries a long history of being worshipped as a divine island.The area near the ferry terminal is a bit less historically-oriented, however. We passed food and souvenir shop after shop, briefly dropping into Hello Kitty Miyajima before resuming our search for a certain oversized kitchen implement.I should note that this island is also home to a seemingly rampant population of tame deer. Everywhere we walked, they were hanging out, eating maps, snatching food from visitors. Despite the warning signs, this lady fed a deer and of course it then followed her everywhere, nudging for more—she was so mad. And deserving.We left the winding shop-lined streets and scavenging animals for the wooded hillside and the temple Senjo-kaku, constructed in 1587 as a space for the monthly chanting of Buddhist sutras in order to console the souls of the dead. It’s huge (over 1,300 square meters), and otherwise known as the Hall of 1,000 Tatami Mats. The neighboring five-storied pagoda was built in 1407.Large paintings inspired by the temple’s natural surroundings were displayed in the rafters of the hall, and visitors wandered, stopped to write prayers and wishes on small wooden spatulas, and sat safe from the sprinkles and gazed out over our next stop below—the Itsukushima Shrine.Built out over the water—at least when the tide is high—is a group of colorful buildings, first constructed in 593 and connected by a series of boardwalks. The famous Torii gate seems to float in the sea, except during low tide when the water recedes and visitors can walk around the sandy inlet and out to the gate.Loving the Third Best View...Lastly, we walked the decorated grounds of Daisho-in, a Shingon temple named for Kobo Daishi, who established the island as a holy site and lit a fire, said to have been burning for 1,200 years, on the mountain’s summit.Back in Hiroshima, we ate Thai and visited an Irish pub chockfull of Australian military personnel; we also ran into a group of three former English teachers in the process of cycling the length of Japan, from Hokkaido to Okinawa.Our final day in the city was spent between two museums: the Hiroshima Museum of Art (focusing mainly on French masters) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (showing a great photography exhibit by Tsuyoshi Ozawa, in which he met with women in different cities around the world and in each place, asked the woman for a local recipe, bought all the ingredients for the recipe, assembled them into a gun, photographed the woman wielding the vegetable weapon, then disassembled the gun and cooked and enjoyed the meal with the woman and company). We caught a good view of the city from a hill on the southeast side of town, then it was back to the station and back to Shizuoka.