Japan: Day #22 (October 12, 2008 Sunday) Miyajima

It was another beautiful day for sightseeing in Japan. We arrived in Miyajima last evening from Hiroshima and are staying at the Coral Hotel which is less than a minute walk from the ferry to Itsukushima Island. Itsukushima also has deer and the Itsukushima shrine which is just beautiful. It's very frustrating to not be able to show you what we saw.

We arrived during high tide when the torii looked like it was floating on the water and got to see it at low tide when the water flowed back into the ocean. It was magnificent!

Tomorrow (Day #23) we'll be headed back to Hiroshima to meet Art's relatives for the first time. Unfortunately he's the only member of our group who does not understand Japanese very much at all. However, he will be able to see where his family's roots sprang from decades ago. My mother will be busy translating.

We'll be staying with them one night and then return to Hawaii the following morning. It will be a very tiring day of travel. We'll take the train from Kabe to Hiroshima to Himeji to Tokyo and then catch our flight to Hawaii. Phew! Here's hoping all our connections work out. I'll be writing my next post from Hawaii.

Until then, peace and love to all of you. It has been such a pleasure to share this journey with all of you. My mother and brother said that at the start of the trip it felt like we had all the time in the world but now it's gone by in a flash and so much of it are impressions that are hard to organize in our heads. Thank goodness we all kept a journal and took lots of photos to remember and relive the fun and beautiful moments we shared.




The deer at Miyajima were not being given food to eat. They tried to eat the map right out of my pocket. Good grief! They were completely unafraid of tourists as you can see.



Itsukushima Island with its torii is one of the top three magnificent sights of Japan. Here, the torii looks like it's floating on the water.



The Itsukushima Shrine was just gorgeous! Apparently a typhoon had damaged parts of it but I couldn't tell. It had been expertly repaired.



And here we all are. Dennis brought a tripod so he could get a photo of all of us but it was much easier to ask someone to take it. We've found that no matter where you go around the world, there's someone who will gladly take your photo for you and then more often than not, ask you to take one of them also.



We decided to take the hike up Mt. Misen. Mom and I decided to go up a bit to see how far we could get.



This wasp was HUGE and beautiful. I was going right up with my macro lens before Art cautioned me that it might be pretty but it did have a sting!



We THOUGHT we went half way up the mountain before my mom and I turned back but Art says we actually went only a third of the way.



Art, Dennis and I gave mom a bit of a helping hand, pull, push up the mountain. She got a huge laugh out of it.



Low tide! Art checked out the tide schedule before we left for Itsukushima Island. I was so glad he did because we were able to see the magic of the tides.



Mom was a bit hesitant about going down onto the ocean floor but was surprised to find the sandy bottom very firm and easy to walk on. There were people there digging for clams while the tide was out.



It was such a wonderful day!