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Our second day in Hiroshima, we took the train a few miles out of town to Mayajima-guchi, where we walked down to the water's edge and caught a JR ferry to the island. (The price was included in our JR rail pass!) |
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These first few photos were taken from the ferry. The torii is called "The Floating Torii" because it is said to appear to be floating on the water. (Okay, if you say so.) I liked the cherry trees behind the torii in this shot. |
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I have to assume that the ferries are prohibited from going too close, so the waves won't bother the temple and the torii. These shots were taken with as much zoom as my little camera could muster. I didn't really know what I was seeing. In the first shot (yeah, the one with the flash reflecting in the window) I almost took a picture of the temple itself; you can just see part of it at the left. |
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Walking from the ferry landing toward the temple, I was a little surprised to realize that this is a real town. People live here. Restaurants, shops, cars... I guess I thought it was all going to be a national park, or something. It's a beautiful place. Over the trees, a large temple and one of those 5-tiered pagodas. |
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Another gate along the way, and one of a pair of those lion/dog creatures. I failed to even notice whether these two lions were one with open mouth and one with closed mouth, like the shisas in Okinawa. (Christeen noticed. She tells me that, indeed, one's mouth was open, one's was closed.) |
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The Floating Torii, at last. It's surprisingly close to shore. |
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Continuing on past the torii. I wanted to get a closer look at that pagoda, and at the temple I'd read about, built on stilts out over the water. |
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This was close as we got to the 5-tiered pagoda. |
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Overlooking the waters' edge temple toward the Floating Torii. (I never got a good shot of the buildings on stilts above the water, and all the connecting ramps between. |
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A profusion of cherries and stone lanterns along a creek through the town. |
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I bought this baseball cap in one of the little gift shops, and got Christeen to shoot me wearing it in front of the torii. We ate lunch on the island before heading back to Hiroshima. We had local-style okonomiyaki. It's more elaborate than Osaka-style. Here, they layer fried noodles into the "pancake". It's sort of like okonomiyaki and yakisoba together in one dish. |
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The island is also famous for its momiji (Japanese maples) and fall colors. I liked the way the young green momiji leaves looked together with the cherry blossoms. Those little deer were running around everywhere, following people who had food. While Christeen and I were walking around, we had snacked on grilled tomorokoshi (corn-on-the-cob) we bought from a booth. Afterwards I couldn't find a trash can for the cob anywhere. So I ended up giving the cob to one of the deer, who ate the whole thing. |