Sunday, November 28, 2010

Miyajima Island - The Most Beautiful Place on Earth



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!

Me on the ferry with some of the beautiful Miyajima mountains in the background.

Ryan on the ferry.

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

Ryan's lunch: soba and oysters (a Miyajima/Hiroshima specialty).

My lunch: soba and sweet bean curd...the latter of which is much yummier than it sounds!

Kanpai!  Actually, it's just tea.

Oh Ryan, you sly dog...

The entrance to the famous Itsukushima Shinto shrine.

The deer there are wicked tame.  Tame enough to pet, even, if you catch them on a good day!

Ryan pets a very cooperative lady deer.

The vermilion gate at high tide.  At ebb tide, you can walk straight up to it.

Itsukushima shrine, which looks like it's floating at high tide.

Itsukushima shrine with a pagoda in the background.

A performing monkey named Yuki-chan who had mastered stilts like I never will!

Cheer up, Emo Buddha!

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.

A Buddhist shrine.  This back part of Miyajima was much less tourist-y, and there were almost no foreigners.

Ringing the temple bell -- again, supposed to confer blessings upon the one who rings it.  (It can't hurt to try, can it?)

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.

500 Buddhas -- literally five hundred!  And each one has a different face!

Grrr!  Evil-doers begone!

The likeness is uncanny.

Hello little dear :)

The rope way to the top of the mountain.

The view from the top of the mountain at sunset.

"We do not hope to be such a monkey.  Please refrain from feeding us."

From the top of the mountain at sunset.

The vermilion gate at night, captured as we were leaving :)

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