Guillaume Visits: Miyajima!

So, right next to Hiroshima is they very well known island of Miyajima, or rather Itsukushima.

You might never have heard of Miyajima or Itsukushima before, but I am sure you have at least seen pictures of the famous Tori gate for which it is known, which floats in the water right off its shores.

While the pictures are, of course, amazing, nothing lives up to this gate up close and personal.

When we visited, it was low tide, so we didn't actually get to see the gate floating in the water. I think what we got was better, though, in that we got to walk right up to it.

With the bright orangeish red color of the gate combined with the beautiful blue sky with the perfectly white and fluffy clouds, the image was breathtaking.
Even if the part that is often covered with water was, um, cute.

Little shellfish things lived all over it. :-)

At the temple by the Tori gate, there were also some really cool things. It was cool to get to watch the crabs crawling all over the place where normally there is water, and to check out the bridge that seemed to be over nothing because of the low tide.


And of course, no Japanese temple would be complete without the notorious sake barrels.
While the island is known for this Tori gate, there are also quite a few other amazing things to see.

We hiked through and ate lunch in a beautiful park, that would have been peaceful if it weren't for the deer that were even more annoying than the Nara deer. They tried to steal our food, and when we didn't want to give it to them, they tried to attack us with their antlers.

Then we hiked up to this really cool temple. My favorite part of the island, I think, was the hundreds of mini statues leading up to the temple.

Seriously, they were SO cool. And there were really hundreds of them - they seemed to go on forever and ever.

What made them particularly awesome was that each and every one of them, though they looked the same from afar, was extraordinarily different. There were fat ones and emaciated ones and serious ones and ones making funny faces and. . .

This was my favorite one, holding a dragon!
Sorry, just one more picture so that you can really get the feeling of how they were EVERYWHERE!

Okay, enough pictures of the little statues. There were also some other super cool statues at this temple.

Like this one of some weird Japanese Pinnochioesque man.

And of course, not to be forgotten, An Pan man. An Pan is basically this pancake like bread filled with red bean paste, and this little dude's head is supposed to be An Pan. He is the face of An Pan!


The gardens at the temple were also beautiful!


As was the amazing view out over the island!

On our way down, we stopped at the five story pagoda.

They must really love these things in Japan, as they seem to be everywhere I look!

Guillaume Visits: Hiroshima!

So, Saturday morning, after a lovely week in Okazaki, we headed off to Hiroshima.

Hiroshima was AWESOME! I had just seen a movie about the bombing right before going, so visiting genkaku dome was very sad for me. I really almost cried.

We were super tired, but it was absolutely worth seeing.


The memorial was absolutely lovely, and


and there were these paper cranes EVERYWHERE!


The dome itself was really something to see.
I have to say, I'm glad that they've decided to keep it in this condition for everyone to see.
I wished that I had brought a paper crane to add to the pile.
We also went into the Memorial Museum.


us looking tired
It was incredibly sad - they had a database so that you could look up pictures of all the people that died during the bomb or from affects of the bomb. And then they had digital books that you could look through to see pictures drawn by accounts written by people that had actually been there and witnessed it. There was one story, accompanied by picture, that actually did make me cry.

We also went for a night visit of the castle - we didn't really feel the need to go inside, and it was so beautiful lit up at night.





in front of the castle


the castle lit up all beautifully at night

One day while there, we decided that we were going to hike to the top of the mountain to see the dome up there. We had read wonderful things about the hike (despite there being NO mention of it in the Lonely Planet - how odd)

On our way towards attempting to find the trail,


we saw these ADORABLE bunny road things!

We started off at the wrong temple and ended up hiking high up into a mountain on the way to nowhere. We did finally find our way, though, and let's just say: the hike was steep.



Notice the ambulance - yes, they were having to escort someone down. It was hot and steep and rugged and rough!


When we got to the graveyard, there was a firetruck, and someone was being escorted down. I'm not surprised - getting from the bottom of the graveyard to the top was rough. The dome at the top of the hill was cool,



Me in front of the Peace Monument



and the view of Hiroshima was also pretty cool,

but it was the hike down that was the most amazing. We hiked a trail (a different one) that has a name, but I've forgotten what that name is. We found ourselves hiking down through tori gate after tori gate.



Guillaume in the tori gates



Me in the tori gates

There were literally HUNDREDS of them!



Seriously, they just went on FOREVER!
I seriously couldn't stop taking pictures.



Notice how scary Guillaume looks behind me

It was really an amazing sight.

While there, we ate in this Indian Restaurant called Roopali.



It was definitely NOT the best of Indian restaurants in which I have eaten, but it was alright.

We also discovered this restaurant called Vegan Cafe, which was absolutely DELICIOUS! I can't remember if we ate there twice or three times. I wish it was here in Okazaki

And one day, when leaving the restaurant, we came across a rockabilly/punk band playing in a square. Almost everywhere I go, I come across a random punk band playing in the street - Okazaki, Nagoya, Kyoto, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Takayama,. . .



It was SO hot! I don't know HOW they were wearing those black leather jackets.
They were really good, and I wish we had had more time to stay and watch for a while.

We also decided to hike up to the manga library.




I say hike up because, well, it really was a long hike up a very steep hill, and then the manga library wasn't even all that interesting.
Let me just say - if ever I were to live in Hiroshima, I would SO want a car!

So yes, we had a FABULOUS time in Hiroshima! And, in case you were wondering, we did indeed go spend a day in Miyajima (how can you go to Hiroshima without heading to Miyajima?), and the next post will be all about that!