Day 5 Japan
OK so today's plan was to get to Miyajima island for an overnight stay. Originally I was going to stay in Hiroshima last night then go to Miyajima but the weekend shenanigans put the kibosh on that.
Since Miyajima is most easily accessed via Hiroshima I decided to do a half day there first and go to Miyajima in the afternoon. So I got the train from Fukuoka to Hiroshima and found somewhere to stash my luggage.
Kat had suggested that I do the Hiroshima A-bomb stuff before doing something awesome since it was going to be depressing so I've decided to knock all that stuff off today then do the cool Miyajima stay tonight.
I jumped on the bus from the train station and headed for the A-bomb dome. This is the last surviving building from the A-bomb in Hiroshima and they've made a big memorial of it. It's situated in a park with a bunch of memorial stuff around it. It was a fantastic day and it was actually a really beautiful sight if you don't think about the reason the building is there.
I was surprised how much of it was left standing if that's the only one that has survived. As expected a bunch of tourists around but not so many to make it annoying. There was a cat standing (well sleeping) guard under the main dome area. No doubt a nice sunbeam there it tried to cross. #garfield
Walked around, took a few snaps then walked through the Peace Park towards the memorial museum. The park is really nice. Full of memorials from other countries promoting peace and abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide. Some of them are good, some are a bit shit. Tourists particularly seemed to like the bells. There was a queue for one that was dedicated to children who died in the blast. I just went to one that wasn't about children (because I don't like children) and walked straight up to it. The noise was much more sonorous than the children one so I felt vindicated.
The main museum was actually closed when I arrived because they were doing renovations or maintenance or something so they only had a different wing open. It seemed to have been closed for a while so I'm sure they moved all the good exhibits over to this building and I don't think I missed anything too big.
You can tell they have spent a lot of money on this exhibit. Particularly compared to the Nagasaki museum. Flash building with a lot of technology used. There were tons of tourists there as well. At this big curved wall with a timeline the tourists were stacked 5 deep trying to read it and take photos.
So it's possible that I'm emotionally disabled but I didn't come out of the museum feeling anything in particular. It was interesting but not upsetting. It's a horrible thing that happened and I hope it's never repeated (shouldn't need to be) but I kind of felt the museum was a bit sterile. Was talking to a chick in a hostel a couple of days later and she said she cried going through the museum. I don't get it.
I preferred the Nagasaki museum. Definitely not as much money spent on it and definitely smaller but I felt it was a bit more personal and told the story in a more meaningful way.
OK. So the "depressing" stuff over with and I made my way back to the train station to grab my bag and head to Miyajima.
The train ride down was easy. Stopped in at the tourist information centre to see what they had about Miyajima and the dude working there was yet another Japanese person to have lived in Australia. This guy spent 3 years in Sydney or Melbourne working for a business importing Japanese stuff. He seemed to really enjoy talking to an Aussie and gave me a few recommendations for the island that turned out to be wrong.
One of those things was that you won't be able to buy beer on the island after about 6pm so I got a few beers at the 711 on the mainland. What a load of BS. There was beer everywhere including beer vending machines.
Speaking of - the beer I bought was from the Miyajima island brewery. I had 3 different beers which I can't remember right now and they were all alright. No bad ones. I think I liked the wheat beer the most.
The ferry over to the island only took 10 minutes. Kind of like the Coochimudlo ferry in SE Queensland.
Miyajima is one of the top 3 scenic spots in Japan (who voted on this?) I believe because of the massive Torii gate in the harbour there. You get a reasonable view of the gate as you're going in but I was going to get much closer later. There are a few oyster farms or something in the harbour as well so it was a reasonably interesting 10 minutes.
One of the things Miyajima is famous for is the wild deer roaming around the place. It took all of 30 seconds on the island for a deer to walk in front of me. I think they are wild only in the sense that they are not formal pets of people. They basically roam around and try to steal food from idiot tourists despite all the signs around telling you not to feed them.
The hostel on the island was really nice. It was a nearly new facility and everything was in great condition. There were 2 Japanese girls at reception who seemed to have a great time while checking me in but I never figured out why. Inside joke I guess. Hostel was pretty empty ... only me and a Spanish couple in our 8 person dorm room so we had heaps of room.
It was pretty hot so I wanted to go for a swim in the water but both the hostel people and the Spanish couple advised against it. Apparently the water is not particularly clean around the island due to all the boats and the fireworks festival that happened a couple of days before.
So I trundled down to check out the Torii gate since that's the main attraction of the island. Walked through "town" on the way and most of the shops were closed or closing since most of the day-trippers were leaving by the time I arrived. That's one of the good things about overnighting at places like this. You get the attractions mostly to yourself at night and early morning.
The Torii gate was pretty nice I will admit. It's a really scenic spot and gate looks great in the water against the backdrop of the mountains behind it. Still plenty of people around though since sunset and low tide were coming.
At low tide you can walk out to the gate and get photos underneath it and from the other side. So I spent a surprisingly entertaining hour or two wandering around the Torii gate getting photos from various angles with various levels of water and sun. Took a few photos for couples or groups. Surprising how few offered to return the favour.
The fact that I was wading out away from the islands to get some shots from the mainland angle seemed to amuse a few people. The water was really shallow though ... barely up to my knees despite being a hundred metres out. Not sure why more people weren't doing it. The gate was a different colour from that side. Noobs.
There was also a temple there near the gate on pylons and it looks a bit different between low and high tides. So I wandered around there a bit as well. I'd go back in the morning to check them both out at high tide.
Wandered back to the hostel for a shower then out for some dinner.
Ended up at one of the only places in town left open at 9pm and they were making a killing. I had a really nice (and expensive) meal before heading back to torii gate to have a look at it by night.
They light it up with big spotlights til about 11 and it was a really nice view. Until the tourist boats came in. These boats would cruise up and go around the gate then go through and park directly under the gate so tourists could take selfies then cruise around a bit longer before being replaced by a different boat. Very annoying for those of us on the shore waiting to get a decent photo. Eventually got a couple and then went back to bed.
Spoke to the Spaniards a bit later and they said it was completely deserted after 10pm when they went and the water was so calm the reflections were great.
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