Miyajima
We both slept the sleep of the just on our futons, and were only half an hour late for breakfast — due to a misunderstanding about where it would happen. Our Japanese breakfast was not a great success - even I found it hard to stomach dried fish and pickled vegetables as my first meal of the day. Somewhat shamefacedly, we asked for Western breakfast tomorrow.
We procured a shuttle bus to the ferry terminal to begin our day’s sightseeing. It was quiet. “Where are all the tourists?”, asked Debbie, attempting to pet a deer, and scaring it away in the process. There are many deer on the island. They soon become too familiar to deserve comment, and I won’t mention them again. As she finished the sentence, a bell rang at the ferry terminal, and hordes of tourists emptied off it. Many were gaijin. Too many. We pursued our second breakfast, before the cafes filled up. Coffee, orange juice and toast filled and settled our stomachs, and we were ready to see the island.
The first stop was Itsukushima shrine and its famous Torii gate. We were lucky enough to catch the gate during high tide, when it appears to float. With the tide out, it just looks as if it was built on some mud, which is the truth. Too many people have witnessed the mud stage for the floating illusion to have much credence…
Nonetheless, it makes a handsome sight, and I consumed a lot of camera battery power on it.
A film crew was filming a romantic boy/girl scene using the torii as a backdrop, meaning I got a romantic photo of my own.
Walking on, we arrived at the Daiganji temple, with several Buddhist shrines. We peeked at each one, and moved on. We had a few false starts thanks to a sketchy map, but eventually found a quiet wooded walk past an awful lot of pretty cherry blossom, that took us to the next of Miyajima’s many sights, Daishoin temple. Quoting from a leaflet, this is “the headquarters of the Omuro branch of the Shingon denomination of Buddhism”, and it was quite something.
Throughout our visit, chanting and chiming and taiko drumming was audible through loudspeakers. During our visit, we discovered that this wasn’t recorded - a monk was performing this ritual before a small group of worshippers, and being broadcast so the whole temple could hear.
Here, we witnessed for the first time the practice of displaying tinned fruit as an offering to a deity. We saw this many times more today.
One thing I like very much about Japanese Buddhism (like Balinese Hinduism) is the literally hundreds of exotic characters that are depicted in their temples. People are depicted in various ways - sometimes as fierce monsters, sometimes as calm realistic portraits, sometimes as cute cartoons. Many would not have looked out of place in Akihabara’s shops full of plastic figures, but these were carved from stone sometimes centuries ago.
Daiganji temple had dozens of shrines and monuments. Some were impressive in scale — 1000 statues of the Immovable King Fudo, 1000 statues of Amida Nyorai, 500 statues (each different) depicting the disciples of Shaka Nyorai.
Why, if I didn’t have the temple’s leaflet in front of my, I’d probably have forgotten all the detail.
This brought us to nearly lunchtime. We left the temple and reached a fork in the road. One branch would take us back to the main food and souvenirs drag but away from our intended eventual destination, while the other would take us to the cable car to Mount Misen. We debated which one to take. Would there be food on the higher route? I judged that at the very least there would be vending.
Shortly, we came upon a cafe which was cleverly drumming up business by directing pedestrians in search of the cable car through their establishment, instead of a flatter route that avoided them. We rewarded their ingenuity with our custom, and they rewarded our custom with some noodles eaten before a stunning view of the floating torii and the straight separating us from the mainland. Ferries came and went.
We walked on to the cable car stop. It was a steep walk, but we felt we’d be rewarded by an easy journey to the peak. Mount Misen is considered holy by Buddhists, as their saint Kobo Daishi practiced his asceticism around the peak.
In fact, the cable car terminates on a separate local maximum. This has great views of the inland sea, but it means a reasonable climb down before you can start ascending towards Misen’s real peak, and the highest point on the island. It also has monkeys. Loads of them. Some of them in trees: Saru wa hon ni. We watched a tree rustle dramatically for a minute or so before three monkeys tumbled out of it. Later we tired of their juvenile antics. Stupid childish monkeys.
A nice American with a son named Diego took our photo (”Diego, don’t run near the cliff.”; “Diego, I don’t want any hand gestures in this photograph, do you understand?”).
Then we set out for the peak, which we soon discovered was a fairly tiring walk. Along the way we saw some big rocks (our leaflet has big things to say about the big rocks), and a pot that has been kept simmering over burning wood since Kobo Daishi first lit it 1200 years ago. The eternal “flame of peace” in nearby Hiroshima was lit from this fire.
There were a number of pathside shrines, some with tinned fruit. Finally, we reached the peak and enjoyed the usual peak enjoyments - a 360 degree view, and the satisfaction of being unable to get any higher except briefly by jumping. Or climbing on the railings. Or better still, climbing on the railings then jumping - but that would have been foolish. Leave that kind of behaviour for Diego, who’s parents we suspect abandoned the climb in its early stages.
The descent was easier on the calves (by which I mean the leg muscles, not the baby deer. I promised not to mention the deer again.) but harder on the knees. We arrived at the cable car with just enough time to get some vended drinks before boarding (”D1″ coffee in a can — good; milky; unsweetened).
Our challenge now was to find our way back to the ryokan. This was easier than we had feared, and we even thought we were a bit early, so we contemplated the gardens for a short while before entering. Actually, what caused us to enter when we did was the arrival of a crocodile of gaijin teenagers, and the prospect of their occupying the ryokan staff when we wanted our room key.
We had a relaxing yakuta hour, followed by a pleasant bath to soak away our peak-tired muscles (we are now onsen pros, although at no point have I shared a bath with a non-gaijin).
Our dinner tonight was another twelve course feast, with a less fishy theme than last night. I wonder whether if you ask for a Western breakfast they give you a toned down kaiseki meal?
Bloated with food, we await the bedmaking squad, whereupon we’ll be tempted into a very early night indeed if we’re not careful.