Saturday at Miyajima

Miyajima island

This island was on the top of the list of the must see around the Hiroshima area.  We left the hotel early to catch a train out to the island.  We had to ride a ferry boat to get there and it was included in the train fare.  

This is the O-torii gate.

We heard that it is magnificent to behold during the high tide so we checked the tide schedule before we left the hotel and knew we had until 5 pm to explore the island before the tide came in.

This Daishoin temple.

You have to walk past the guards and climb the stairs to get to the main temple grounds. 

But first we enjoyed the outer part of the temple where statues of Buddha and other figures were displayed.

  

I absolutely love water features like these in the temples.  We lived in a mountain under a small temple when I was little and I remember drinking water from something very much like this.

There were thousands of these figures all over the temple

  

And some of them are more humorous than others

Some pictures from the main grounds of the temple

Our original plan was to ride the cable car from one end to other side of Mt Misen, but it was closed for maintenance so we decided to hike up Mt Misen from Daishoin temple.  For some reason instead of switch backs they have stair steps most of the way to the top.  Those stairs nearly killed me, but we made it to the top.

 The O-Torii gate during the high tide

Itsukushima shrine
This is a very popular place among tourists and the only place we had to pay an entrance fee, but it turned out to be a total disappointment.  There was nothing there; you just walk around the deck of the shrine.  I heard that it used to be a sacred place, but I just thought it was another tourist trap.  There was a long line of people to take a perfect picture with the O-torii gate as the background.

Five story pagoda

We didn't wait in line to take a perfect picture with the O-torii gate, but I thought this turned out just fine.

There were many deer all over the island.  They were harassed by the tourists, but they equally harassed the tourists for food.

There were many small shrines like this all over the island which I felt were more sacred than the famous Itsukushima shrine.