Japan: Miyajima Island

Our second day in Hiroshima we headed out to Miyajima Island. Well, it is actually called, Itsukushima, but it is also known as Miyajima which means the Shrine Island. Miyajima is about forty-five minutes outside of Hiroshima. There are a few options on getting to the Island (train, tram or boat) we went with the tram. Then we had a short ferry ride to the island.

Miyajima is most famous for the huge torii gate that appears to float on the water at high tide. I wish that we had timed our visit to see the full affect of this. The torii gate is part of the Itsukushima shrine, which is also built over the water.

This is the main shrine building at low tide.

After we walked through the Itsukushima shrine we walked around the island a little bit. We saw a few deer that live and roam free on the island. We also stopped at the Municipal Museum of History and Folklore of Miyajima. I couldn't take any pictures inside so I got a picture of the building. It was an interesting museum, though it would have been more interesting if I could read Japanese as there wasn't a lot of English.

History and Folklore Museum

There were a lot of deer, they didn't seem to be afraid of people and they were apparently hungry.

We had lunch and then headed back to the ferry. On our way back the tide was all the way out and we were able to walk out to and under the torii. It was neat to see if from that angle.

These are the biggest koi I have ever seen!!

We had a great time exploring Miyajima Island. We didn't take the gondola up to the top of Mount Misen which I wish we had done. But it started raining so it was probably a good time for us to head back to the hotel.