Monday, July 28, 2008

Miyajima Island

Okay, so last Saturday we went to Miyajima Island which was about a 20min train ride up north, just right next to Hiroshima. It's a really cool island that has a lot of cultural stuff and a hike up the mountain. And this is a MAJOR picture post and it's taken me days to do this because it takes forever to put pictures on, so the pictures are out of order! The end should really be the beginning.

So this is at Omoto Park at the end of our hike down, which we thought we'd never get through, and of course there's deer everywhere and Ryan starts to feed some little deer some sunflower seeds and then this big guy come with a full rack of antlers and starts to nudge him with them! The deer was getting mad because Ryan didn't open the sunflower seeds enough to get any through so it was taking awhile. And when you get off the ferry to get here they tell you to watch out for the antlered deer because they might hurt you! So Ryan dumped a whole bunch on the ground and we ran away because they tried to follow us!

Us at the rope way drop off observatory. I hope you all(pooch) notice that I am getting a tan!

I think this is like a special smoke house where they have a continuous flame or something like that all the time. This is just below the highest point.




A cool little shrine thingy. You see these a lot, you may not be able to see in this picture but they also like to stack rocks from bigger to smaller on the shrine too, probably like a prayer thing.

We were so tired from hiking up and then we had to hold this freakin rock! Man is was a rough one! This is almost to the top!

These are the rock formations that we walked through up to the top.
Nice view of HiroshimaUs at the highest point! We are sweating so bad, and it was even worse when we got back down. Our clothes were literally soaking wet, Ryan had brought another dry shirt in anticipation!

Ryan as a little Monk guy.



Us as little Japanese monkeys going on up the rope way! Unfortunately we didn't see any wild monkeys up there so we'll have to go back.







I think this is the right picture to show what we hiked. The first peak on the left is the area that the rope way brings you, then you have to hike over the the tallest peak where they have an observatory. Then because we went up too late we had to hike the long way down because the short way was still under construction from the damage of the typhoon that came through from when Ryan was here in 2005. It took us about an hour and a half to walk down like 2miles worth of stairs. I'm going on my 4th day from the hike and my calfs are still so sore!


A view from the ride up. It goes slow so you can get a good look around and be grateful you didn't decide to hike up it.



A nice view of the city across the bay, which might be the beginnings of Hiroshima just on the right.



This is a picture of us at our new house! Everyone here lives in Pagodas! Oh ya, we have ice cream in our hand. I'll have to take a picture but there are ALWAYS vending machine for anything cold/hot to drink and ice cream.



This is the Homotsukan(treasure hall) . It has the Heike Clan's Buddhist sutras, the treasures of the Itsukushima Shrine were dedicated by members of the clan as prayers for their prosperity.




Reese this is for you! There was a store there that was dedicated for Hello Kitty! I even took a picture with her! You see Hello Kitty everywhere, they even make her into action hero's, ninjas, a soccer player, a baseball player and a dancer! I'll have to figure out how to spell Reese in Japanese because you could get a lot of stuff with your name on it. That bag in my had might even have something for you!






So this is the Worlds Largest Rice spoon, don't everyone be jealous now!




This is the Torii Gate to Miyajima Island. There are two main religions in Japan one is Buddism and Shinto, and at every shrine/cemetary it is identified by whether it has a Torii Gate(Shinto) or I think a statue for Buddism. So this Torii is in front of the Itsukushima Shrine and marks a pathway into a sacred place.



Gotta do our peace sign!


This picture is a little hard to see, I don't have a program to fix it right now.





Our friends Ben and Tish, we hang with them most of the time.


Nice view of the Tori Gate. Behind it is the Itsukushima Shrine.


This little guy was trying to eat Ryan's shirt and then he was going after the paper, they all wanted the paper for some reason.


It's really weird to be so close to them, you get a little scared


Isn't he so cute and fair!


They just love to sit and chill. It was pretty hot so I understand.