Street food is yummy

Day 9

There is a feel of a metropolitan city in Hiroshima. Honshu island, where Hiroshima, Tokyo and Kyoto are, has a different feel from Kyushu island.

There are more high rise buildings, more people, there is no 'good morning' and 'good afternoon' exchanged between strangers in the street, the cars are not as respecteful of pedestrians (traffic lights are respected but if there are none, you need to step onto the pedestrian crossing or they don't stop), people rush more in the streets. Funny enough, if the light is red pedestrians don't cross the street even if there is no traffic, but if we cross the street with the red light, then some of them cross as well. Such behaviour was not observed in Kyushu.

Hiroshima is also a lot more touristic then Kyushu. In Kyushu we felt that we were the attraction. People looked at us in the streets (respectfully), some came to speak to us to know where we were from, one man in the street and a women in an onsen recognised our language and spoke a little spanish with us (portuguese was to much to ask!), some were amazed we came so far to visit their country. We barely saw another foreigner and that explains why everything is mainly in japanese, translated to chinese and korean only.

In Hiroshima almost everything is translated to english, there are foreigners everywhere and english is more broadly spoken. We mingle better here but it is not as fun.

The day was spent at Miyajima island, off Hiroshima bay, a sacred Shinto site since ancient time, where it is forbiden to be born and to die! The island is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

As Hiroshima is quite a big city and we were taking the ferry from the furthest port, we took the tram, aka streetcar in Japan.

The ferry is quick, about 10min, and it was full of tourists. The island's main attraction is Itsukushima Shrine and it's gate O-Torii (called 'floating torii), which are partly built in the sea. They are submerged during high tide and on dry land during low tide. As the tides usually have a 6h difference, we timed the trip to see both, high tide in the morning and low tide in the afternoon.

The shrine's colour is supposed to be red but my eyes see it has bright orange.

The treasure house has some good artefacts belonging to the shrine and it is worth buying the combined ticket with the shrine.

Scattered around the island there are other temples and shrines, there is a shopping avenue with many shops and food stalls, a pretty river with small bridges and the island's more entertaining inhabitants: deers. They are so used to people that they don't run, you can touch their fur and they are very keen on our food, to the point of having to run from them.

Lunch was bought in several food stalls. Street food today! We had oysters (locally farmed and famous), fried sticks (fish, soy beans, chicken & bacon), steamed buns (beef and eel), grilled sticks (octopus, chicken and corn), roasted chestnuts (more steamed than roasted) and ice-cream. It was yummy.

Up the ropeway and cablecar you get to Mount Misen, at 530m it is the highest point in the island. 

From Mount Misen's observatory you can see almost all the island and also other islands from the Seto Inland Sea.

There is a temple in the mount that is supposed to have a sacred fire burning continuously since it was first lit 1200 years ago. When we got there the fire was out (it's the one under the pan in the picture below). I'm assuming the monk was on his break...

The majority of tourists were taking the cablecar down but we wanted to do the scenic route so we decided to take the Daisho-in route. This route goes through the forest, cross the river, it has several observation points and little shrines and finishes at Daisho Temple. It is a pretty route but it is not for weak knees. It is a 2.5km descent, stairs all the way down! 

Our knees complained on the way and our legs were quite tired by the time we reached the temple. I managed to drag myself up the first flight of stairs of the temple but decided not to go any further. I had had enough of stairs!

As we approached the ferry to return to Hiroshima the boys decided to tell me they had seen a warning sign on our arrival to the port saying there were poisonous snakes in the island. They had decided not to tell me least I would freak out again. At first I didn't believe them but then I saw the proof. I'm glad they said nothing. Ignorance is a bliss!

Both me and Manuel were absolutely knackered. All we longed for was to fall on our beds and sleep until tomorrow. That proved a bit more complicated than we had antecipated! 

The day before we had made our beds with the linen (stored in the wardrobe) as this is a cheap hotel and they don't make the bed for you. No! You make your own beds! Obviously, we left the beds where they were in the morning as we were only staying for 2 nights and weren't bothered to do it again (like any sane person would!). Do you believe they undid the beds and left new linen for us to make the beds AGAIN?!? Bloody hell! We were sooo tired! 

Manuel threw himself on the tatami floor, put his head on the pillow and declared 'I don't care! I'm staying here!'. We laughed. Me and Jorge made our beds slowly and then helped him make his. Manuel and I stayed in the room and did not leave our beds again.