kansai trip day 1 part 2
after spending the morning and early afternoon in hiroshima, mickie and i headed out to miyajima island. the only method of transportation to and from the island is a JR ferry that runs a couple times an hour, meaning that you have to be prompt else face a long wait. from the ferry, mickie wanted to test out her fairly new camera lens, and i wanted to test out my new camera. i ended up getting some decent long distance photos of the island.
in a couple hours, all those people standing there would be waist deep in water.
besides the tourist areas, the island looked to be completely covered with green.
i love my new camera. my old camera would have pooped out a big blotch of light, indiscernible to any eye.
as you’ll find out from my next post about my trip to nara, some tourist spots have deer wandering around. japanese people believe in living in harmony with nature, so allowing the deer to freely roam is just one part of that practice.
he was the first deer you see so he was getting all kinds of attention.
attention whore.
they mostly window-shop, never really venturing inside to buy anything.
some of the deer get a bit aggressive, so the groundskeepers cut off their sharp antlers but they don’t seem to be too phased by it. exhibit A: deer attacking guy for his plastic bag of stuff.
i just missed the deer grabbing the bag and throwing it to the ground to rummage through it.
"give me my bag back!"
mickie scolded me for just taking pictures and not helping the guy. oops!
the main attraction on miyajima is the torii (i think i’ve covered what a torii is before so i won’t describe it again but here’s a link). next to the torii is a small shrine. it’s nothing i haven’t seen before but its bright red color matched well with the torii.
i don't really know what she's doing.
the shrine surrounds a courtyard-like area where the tide comes up in the evening.
the thing that makes miyajima’s torii so special is that it’s both in the water and not. during the day, the tide recedes and you can stand underneath it to take pictures.
it was a bit too late for us to get a picture right under the torii but we got pictures of people taking pictures under the torii. just as good, right?
instead, we got a picture from the dock-like part of miyajima shrine. the tide was rising by the minute.
during the evening, however, the tide comes back up and the torii looks like it’s floating on the water.
by looking at the base, you can tell that the tide comes REALLY high. i wish we coulda stayed longer but it was effing cold.
because the tide comes in, the ground between the shrine and the torii is covered with slippery seaweed. i almost ate it in front of everyone.
excuse to take a picture of mickie's hind parts? FA sho.
also, the view at sunset is amazing.
wow.
when it gets dark, accent lights come on.
not quite so many colors but the torii's red really stands out.
later that night, we just headed back to our tiny hotel room and rested because we had a long day ahead of us at nara and osaka.
i guess japanese people are smaller so they don't need bigger hotel rooms?
The pic of the torii in the sunset is beautiful. I’m using that as my wallpaper if you don’t mind.
stacy
December 10th, 2010 at 3:04 pmpermalink