Miyajima - Tue 10 Apr

I got a tram, train and ferry from Hiroshima to the island of Miyajima, famous for its floating orange shrine gates.



A deer eats the falling cherry blossoms.


After a look at the gates and the shrine, I caught a cable car to the top of Mt Misen. The ride, over world heritage primeval forests, was spectacular and serenely punctuated by bird calls.

The view from the top made me understand famous Japanese representations of their islands - the distant and nearby islands seemed to the floating in a sea of mist.


I confess to being bitter about seeing only one monkey there, however, as the cable car 15 minutes earlier had seen hordes of them on arrival, screeching adults and carried babies. I saw only one, and only briefly before he turned an angry bum to me and headed off, no doubt to join his pals eating in the forest, as a board explained.

The monkey don't want to become couch potatoes.

This was the only other monkey around at the time.


I had a brief walk around the summit before heading back for the last cable car with two cheery American women, to photograph the sunset, which was a fiery orange.


Note to self: the "go there the night before" travel plan sounds like a good idea. But make sure to leave your day's sightseeing with enough time to get to the next destination - some places are friggin far apart. Leaving Miyajima at 7 after photographing the sun setting behind the floating gates, I had just enough time to get back to Hiroshima, pick my stuff up by taxi from the hotel, and get back for a connecting bullet train and then another local fast train to Beppu, arriving at 11:10. Lucky too that such a late check-in was ok with my Beppu hotel.

I think next holiday, I'm gonna make life easier for myself by making detailed decisions about what I'd like to see, and plan the finer details in advance. This holiday's approach was intended as "get recommendations from various people along the way," but this can be a bit hit and miss, as many people are at the same stage of their journey as you are, wherever you go! It's ended up being more, "skim read through today's city's attractions as you're on the transport there." Tiring..