Saturday, April 19, 2008

Hiroshima and Miyajima Island

I left Kobe with its pathetic bed at the Holiday Inn Express bright and early and arrived at Hiroshima, the city of peace, at 11.28. First impression is that I was very amazed at the city because rather than subway, the city uses trams and I just love trams for reasons of nostalgia and also, I think that tram riding/hoping are so freaking fun!




Also note worthy is that Hiroshima has LV too! haha, I saw it on my way to the hotel. As I was too early, i decided to leave my bags at the hotel and visit Miyajima Island since it was before 1pm. anyway, my room here is bright(er) than Kobe's and the bathroom is smaller! Do you all see a trend here? haha...And the pillow here looks cool! Just as I tot this hotel rocks woth its free breakfast and afternoon tea and coffee service, this bug stuck itself onto the wall in front of me! Yucks! I slapped onto it with my shoe and it now lise behind the cabinet, i think, struggling for its life...I hope it is dead!







Ok, Miyajima, the shrine and tori gate at the island is (yet another) Unesco site and the tori gate is what it is famed for. As one of the top 3 most scenis places in Japan, it is suppose to look this the ticket when the tides are high:
As the ferry approaches the island, I was awed by how impressive and pretty the orange tori gate against the green mountains and blue waters is!

Of course, when you are top 3 u must say right?
But since the tide was only high at 0900 and 2100 hours, the waters did not soak the gate and hence this is what greeted me:
The good thing is that you can get really up close to the gate...and see local folks oyster picking. Luckily for me, since i hate oysters, i did not try any of these shells when i was there. The island also is filled with deers, like Nara...
The shrine is also suppose to be 'floating' on waters too


But another worthy site to visit on the island is the 5 story pagodas (you never knew there are so freaking many pagodas in Japan, yeah?) and it is really pretty cos the orange varnish really made this particular pagoda strikingly beautiful! Then there's this Thousand Mat Shrine that is also very pretty.





The shrine also seem to be built as if its hanging over the cliff but its not as dramatic as the one in Mt. Shosha. But still, the view here is better cos Shosha only has trees but here, you get to see the Shrine below...
And now my fav. photo of this trip! I managed to snap the pagoda from the cherry blossom tree and I love this photo to death! What do you think?

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