Miyajima and Mt. Misen

On Tuesday Morning (May 21) we got up early to take a bus ride to the nearby city of Miyajima, which is a small island right off the coast of Hiroshima. Miyajima is famous for its floating torii (which you will recognize from its picture below) and also its shrine that also appears to be floating when the tide is high. According to Shinto-ism, which was once the national religion of Japan, Miyajima was a sacred place and no commoners were allowed to set foot on the land of the island. In order to enter the shrine, which is raised above the land, the commoners would have to paddle a boat out during high-tide and pass through the torii which is part of the cleansing ritual before they could enter the shrine. Torii’s are found all around Japan and are gates that must be passed through to get to a sacred place such as a shrine. There are many stories about how the first torii was invented, one of the stories goes like this: The sun goddess, from whom the Japanese people are said to have descended, was annoyed at her brother, so she hid herself in a cave and covered its entrance with a rock. This caused a great eclipse to come across all the land. The priests knew that if the sun continued to hide herself then the world would surely come to an end, so they commanded the people to build a giant bird perch and put all the cockatiels of Japan on its top. The squawking of all the cockatiels in one place sparked the Sun Goddess’s curiosity so she slid the rock aside just a little to take a peek at all the commotion. As soon as she looked through the crack, a great sumo-wrestler used all his strength to push the rock completely away to reveal the sun again to the world. MMMM... There’s another story that a great white bird came down from the Sun Goddess to reveal a message from her to the people. Once the bird revealed the message he ascended back up to the sun, but promised to come again. The torii was built to welcome back the great white bird when he returns one day. Whatever the origins are, Miyajima was beautiful.

We took a ferry across to the island and were surprised to find small deer wandering around like stray dogs every where you go. These mangy deer would follow you around and gently nuzzle you for food. It definitely gave you a feeling of other worldliness as you walked around this beautiful place. We toured around the island and learned that it was here that a priest in ancient times made the first rice scoop. The design for the scoop was given to him in a dream by the Sun Goddess, and it is now an almost religious symbol for the island. The island also has a large mountain called Mt. Misen, which you can climb or ride a tram to the top to visit another more ancient shrine which has had a fire burning since the shrine’s dedication in the early 9th century.

When we approached the foot of Mt. Misen, we found that the tram ride would cost us about $20 dollars each. We are travelling on a budget, so this was definitely not in the cards for us. But, We decided to look at our Lonely Planet Travel Guide to see if walking to the top would be possible for us. This is Lonely Plants’ description of the mountain, “The ascent of Misen (530m) is the island’s finest walk… There are monkeys and deer around the cable car stations…Walking paths lead to other elevated points on the island, or you can just follow the gentle walk through Maple Valley.” Although I was in a skirt and sandals and Jonathan in his new shoes for Japan, we thought that this gentle 530m walk through the Japanese forest would be enchanting and romantic (and plus we would get to see monkeys!). So we took off hand in hand on what we expected would be a leisurely stroll to the top of Mt. Misen. After about 20 minutes we passed by two women on their way down the mountain who looked like they weren’t going to make it. They were bathing their feet in a little stream and with red, sweaty faces they made painful noises about their backs. But they were older, so we just felt sorry that their bodies wouldn’t let them enjoy this peaceful stroll. Five minutes later we came to a part of the path that went straight up as far as we could see. We just shrugged and thought that this must just be a small part of the “gentle walk” and happily began the climb. Forty-five minutes later, with no relief from this steep climb, shoes and feet muddy and blistered, armpits dripping, and no longer romantically holding hands, Jonathan yells out, “The guide book should have said ‘The ascent of Misen (2km) is the island’s most intense, uphill, body-destroying hike…There are possibly a couple of mangy little deer, but no damn monkeys!” It was pretty funny. Because we had hiked so far already, neither of us wanted to give up and go back down without the reward of reaching the top. At the top we found the shrine, the fire that had burned for over 1000 years, and an amazing view. Hot and sweaty, Jonathan and I took a few minutes to relax before we had to hike back down in our now destroyed shoes to catch our train to Kurayoshi.

Jonathan on the ferry.

View of Miyajima from the ferry.

View of the shrine and the torii from the ocean. People wade out to the torii to touch and kiss it because they believe it will bless their life.

The famous floating torri.

One of the wandering deer on the island.

This man's job is to sweep up deer droppings from around the city all day long. The deer follow his around all day, and he will occasionally turn around and boink the deer on the head with his broom stick and plead with them to go away. His scorn for his job was apparent.
Jonathan posing with the largest rice scoop in the world!!!

Floating shrine at low tide. Unfortunately, at low tide the shrine is surrounded by mud.

This is the Mountain that we climbed.

The fire that has burned for over 1000 years. You can hardly call that fire burning, can you?
Jonathan posing as one of the shrine guardians at the top of the mountain.

View from the top. Notice my outfit isn't exactly hiker friendly.



Although it was a hazy day, from the top of Mt. Misen you could see many islands of the Japanese archipelago.