Note! This and the last post were made by Joanna! Not Ryan! WHOOPS!  |
| The ferry to Miyajima Island. It's only about 230 yen for a round-trip ticket. In case you're not up on the exchange rate, that's mighty cheap! |
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| Me on the ferry with some of the beautiful Miyajima mountains in the background. |
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| Ryan on the ferry. |
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| The famous vermilion torii gate of Miyajima. I'm willing to bet you've all seen a picture of it before and just didn't realize where it was. Now you know: it's in Miyajima! :D |
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| Ryan's lunch: soba and oysters (a Miyajima/Hiroshima specialty). |
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| My lunch: soba and sweet bean curd...the latter of which is much yummier than it sounds! |
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| Kanpai! Actually, it's just tea. |
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| Oh Ryan, you sly dog... |
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| The entrance to the famous Itsukushima Shinto shrine. |
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| The deer there are wicked tame. Tame enough to pet, even, if you catch them on a good day! |
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| Ryan pets a very cooperative lady deer. |
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| The vermilion gate at high tide. At ebb tide, you can walk straight up to it. |
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| Itsukushima shrine, which looks like it's floating at high tide. |
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| Itsukushima shrine with a pagoda in the background. |
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| A performing monkey named Yuki-chan who had mastered stilts like I never will! |
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| Cheer up, Emo Buddha! |
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| The steps up to the Buddhist temple. In the center of the stairway are prayer wheels -- spinning them on the way up or down is supposed to confer as many blessings upon you as reading one volume of the Heart Sutra. |
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| A Buddhist shrine. This back part of Miyajima was much less tourist-y, and there were almost no foreigners. |
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| Ringing the temple bell -- again, supposed to confer blessings upon the one who rings it. (It can't hurt to try, can it?) |
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| A beautifully-dressed Buddha that's much bigger than this picture might lead you to believe. You kneel in front of it, say a prayer, and ask for a blessing. We saw a Japanese couple kneeling together when we first got there. It was kind of sweet. |
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| 500 Buddhas -- literally five hundred! And each one has a different face! |
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| Grrr! Evil-doers begone! |
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| The likeness is uncanny. |
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| Hello little dear :) |
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| The rope way to the top of the mountain. |
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| The view from the top of the mountain at sunset. |
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| "We do not hope to be such a monkey. Please refrain from feeding us." |
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| From the top of the mountain at sunset. |
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| The vermilion gate at night, captured as we were leaving :) |
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