Of course, like every other morning we started off with a delicious breakfast, this one brought to us by our hotel’s wonderful buffet.
After seeing how well the cherry blossoms had bloomed the night before during the art exhibit, we decided to go back to the Hiroshima castle for a third time to get to walk around the grounds and see the trees. The extra trip was well worth it because the cherry trees were practically in full bloom and it made for a really nice start to the day. While we were there we also saw some Japanese people picnicking under the blossoms, drinking, and having fun with friends. It was cool to see people enjoying the beauty of the gardens.
After a nice walk, we headed for the train station to get a local train to Miyajimaguchi where we could catch a ferry to Miyajima to see the floating Torii gate and floating shrine.
First things first, the island has wild deer that have become somewhat domesticated due to their frequent encounters with tourists and people on the island. This means that there are just deer running around everywhere, on the streets, sidewalks, parks, and beach! They walk right up to people in the hopes that someone will give them some food. This was probably the cutest surprise of the whole trip as well as the most entertaining getting to watch them chase people down who had food. We even saw one at the entrance to a restaurant trying to decide whether or not it wanted to go through the automatic sliding doors it kept opening.
We stopped for lunch and some beer at a local brewery on the island that has been open since 2010! I tried some of the local oysters which were all over the island and Joey and I tried six of their beers. Cool to find something we love so far from home.
After a delicious lunch we walked around the town a little, finding a few pagodas as well as a few parks with some cherry blossoms in full bloom. Definitely a spectacular sight to see and truly breath taking. The photos are amazing but they truly don’t do the beauty of these blossoms any justice. So grateful I got to see them, even just for a day, in person.
After our walk about, we headed back for the ocean to see the gate and shrine. The island Itsukushima itself is believed to be very sacred and so the shrine was built over the water like a pier in order to separate itself from the island so that others would be able to enter the island. During low tide one can walk all the way out to the base of the Torii gate but during high tide the water rises, surrounding the shine completely to make it look like both the gate and the shrine are floating on water.
A really wonderful day of natural beauty and spiritual and historical significance. I got to travel on two new kinds of Japanese transportation as well as adventure outside the city to see a different side of Japan. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my last full day in Japan.