This morning we headed off to Miyajima Island. The cab ride was more expensive than expected (we decided that it'd be easier to just take a cab to the ferry station with our luggage, than try and
deal with the trains), but the ferry ride was short (and cheap), so it kinda made up for it.Here are a couple of pictures I took from the ferry as we were heading to Miyajima.
Luckily for us, our hotel was right across the street from the ferry station. So, we dropped our bags off there and headed off to roam the island.
First stop was Itsukushima Shrine with it's famous "floating" toorii gate. As we starting walking towards Itsukushima shrine, we saw this monk standing on the side of the road. I think (s)he was asking for donations.
Then as we approached the main entrance, we passed a few deer sitting on the side of the road. As with a lot of the other shrines we had seen, on both sides of the toorii gate entrance were a couple of neat lion statues.
Unfortunately, for us, the floating toorii gate for which Miyajima Island is famous for was covered with fencing because they were re-painting it. *SIGH* Oh well, I guess I've got a picture of it that not everyone else has eh?
After getting a few pictures of the toorii gate, we went to take a look at the temple itself. Once again, as we headed towards the main building, there were some other pretty cool statues.
And then there was the buildings of the temple itself. In the distance, you can see the five-storied pagoda.
I also took a panoramic from the dock of the shrine looking back out over the water towards the main island as well.
After checking out the rest of the shrine and then started heading towards Miyajima's ropeway, which leads to the summing of Mt. Misen (the tallest mountain on the island). It is also the home of a monkey sanctuary that we wanted to see as well.
On the way, though, I stopped at the Miyajima Aquarium. I've always liked aquariums, so I wanted to check this one out. For being a smaller aquarium, it had quite a bit of interesting stuff to see.
When I first walked in, there was a person working there walking around holding a penguin. He asked if I wanted to pet it, and so I ended up getting a picture holding it as well. (The other two pics are of the large sea turtles and a snapping turtle)
Next, here is a ray of some sort, a moray eel, and some big fish from the Amazon.
Some lobster, a funky fish that I believe is a type of sea horse, and a spider crab
some jelly fish (really neat because the lighting in the tank would change from green to red to blue), a type of dolphin (I forget what exact type it was, but it sure loved to play with those balls that were floating in its tank), a few penguins, and a flamingo
Probably the neatest thing was the dolphins that were there. If you were standing in front of the glass, I swear they'd stop and stare at you, like they were trying to figure out what you were. Pretty neat, but kinda freaky at the same time.
After checking out the aquarium, Ted and I headed off to the ropeway. On the way up to it, we stopped at a small ramen stand for lunch before eventually reaching the bottom of the ropeway. (I just had to take the picture on the right while we were there ^_^)
From there, we took the ropeway up to the top, where the monkey and deer park was located.
That was something you don't see everyday. There were a bunch of these little monkey's EVERYWHERE. That was funny to watch, because they'd be doing a bunch of really weird things while they were there (eating, chasing each other, climbing on the buildings etc)... I love the warning sign.. ^_^
After watching the monkeys for a while, Ted and I hiked up to the summit of Mt Misen.
On the way up to the top, we passed a small shrine..
Finally, we reached the top, and WOW, what a wonderful view. It was a little bit on the foggy side, so the visibility wasn't 100% perfect, but you could see a bunch (including the the inland sea). It was really pretty up there.
After looking around from the summit for a while, we started the hike back down. It took about an hour, but wasn't too bad. The weather wasn't too hot and it was very pretty, so that made the time pass by pretty quickly.
As we neared the bottom, we came to one of the more interesting shrines I had seen on my trip here (Daishoin Temple). I'm not sure why I liked this one so much. It must have been because of all the different little statues and things that were everywhere. We came in from the back of the shrine, so the pictures here are in the order in which I took them. (i.e. backwards).
First off, there was the interior of one of the main buildings. The pictures don't show it, but it was very dimly lit with all the lanterns hung from the ceiling. And it had several rows of small statues lining it.
In the middle was this small alter (left and right pictures below)
On the alter at the end of the row were these two statues (below, left) on either side of the golden statue that looked like a monk. (below, right)
Outside of this main building were a couple of smaller building and a few smaller monk statues
Off to the left of the building above (right), there were even more small monk statues
Some larger statues
A few smaller building with lots of decorations, alters and other things on the inside,
The guardian statues that you see at the gates of a lot of other temples (bottom middle and right)
And finally, the temple bell and stairs leading down to the entrance
Walking back toward our hotel, we stopped and got a few closer pictures of the five-story pagoda and its surroundings.
And finally, on the way back to the hotel, we decided to stop at all the little shops selling souvenirs, food and other trinkets.
Topping off the evening, it was dinner at the ryokan (very interesting once again),
and then a nice relaxing dip in the ofuro. Man those feel sooooo good.
Tomorrow, it's the long ride back to Tokyo.
