Miyajima

While we were in Hiroshima, we decided to stop by the island of Miyajima since our apartment building is named after the place. It's considered one of the three most scenic places in Japan, and I would definitely have to agree. It's an island that has an old-time Japanese feel to it-- there aren't any big, modern buildings. You can imagine that this place looks pretty much as it did hundreds of years ago, minus the souvenir shops.

Miyajima is well-known for a few things, one of which is the huge tori gate that stands in the water. Tori gates are always at the entrance of shrines and temples and this particular one leads to a very picturesque shrine that also sits in the water. We arrived at Miyajima during low tide so we were actually able to walk right up to the tori gate. Just to give you an idea of how big this thing is, check out the picture below of Mike standing next to it.



The other thing that this island is famous for are the wild deer that roam freely. There was a vendor who was selling deer food to the tourists and Mike was all about trying to get some so that the deer would come closer to him. The guy forewarned him to break up the deer food before the deer came close, but Mike misinterpreted that to mean break up the deer food AS you give it to them. This picture shows Mike with a handful of deer, but what I wasn't able to capture was the shot that came next. Immediately after this was taken, Mike was surrounded by about 20 deer who saw that he had huge chunks of their food. I was so excited because it was going to make such a great picture when suddenly, I hear a yell and see Mike throwing the food up in the air and walking very quickly (running) away. I was a little annoyed that I didn't get my shot, but it turns out that the reason for my missed picture opportunity was that one of the overly excited deer bit him in the butt! All day after that, any time Mike saw deer, whether it was real or a figurine sold in a souvenir shop, he muttered how stupid and ugly deer were. I think the poor thing was traumatized by the experience.

Another thing that makes Miyajima such a unique place is the shrine that is built on stilts so that when it's high tide, it looks like it's floating on the water. Unfortunately we weren't able to experience that because we visited during low tide, but we were able to witness a traditional Japanese wedding that was taking place at the shrine.


This guy might be a priest of some sort, but he did a ceremonial dance in front of the bride and groom.


Here's the guy doing his dance, but it took so long that Mike and I eventually left. I thought Filipino weddings were long!



Here's the bride and groom, with who I'm assuming is the bride's mother.



The rest of the day was spent exploring the shops and eating 'soft cream', or soft serve ice cream. It's much better than the kind back home, probably because it's more fattening. Which now makes me feel even more guilty because I had 3 servings during our visit to Miyajima. My only excuse was that it was really, really hot that day and I needed it to cool down. Anyways, here's a few more interesting things we saw while at Miyajima...




A five-story pagoda behind the shrine.








An evil looking, red-eyed fake horse in a barn.





A really big spoon. The wooden spoon is considered a symbol of good luck here-- I'm not sure if 'here' means just Miyajima or all over Japan.

Miyajima was a surprise discovery. I originally just wanted to go to say we went, especially since our tower is named after it. In the end, it has probably been one of my favorite places so far. They really weren't lying when they said it's one of Japan's most beautiful places.