day 95 hiroshima day 2 miyajima

this was the day

if u ever go to hiroshima and you can only go one place, go to MIYAJIMA.
that's some island near hiroshima, kind of like a sentosa place, but of course, nicer one.

i woke up with no plans for the day.
but since i had the whole day free, i thought that day would make the most sense for the furthest journey.
so i took an electric car from my place all the way to the last stop.
hmm, ok, nice journey, i got to see what hiroshima was like.

this is what i see when i arrive

and it turns out i need to take a ferry across to the island of miyajima, so after some deliberation, i think "ah ok la, just try and see."

best decision of the trip.

so off i go on boat

famous island thing:floating tori gate

when i arrive at the island, i find that the umbrella that i've been carrying has been very troublesome and i predicted that it would not rain so i took the risk and i left my umbrella at the umbrella borrowing place at the entrance. i guessed if it did not rain, nobody would bother to notice the different umbrella.

spot the odd one out

well, prediction right, it didn't rain and nobody touched it. haha.

so there are a few things on the island.
there is a nice shopping arcade, full of touristy stuff and food. the food really looked good.
and there is a mountain to hike. or cable car up.
and there are a couple of shrines and folk museums.
and also there is an aquarium-oceanarium-water-zoo thing
plus also got a beach recreation area to camp or bbq or play.

i didn't have time to go everywhere but i think 2 or 3 days staying there can be quite fun with the right company and at the right pace.
here are some of the sights

world's biggest rice scoop

like nara, deers are free ranging.
guess what this guy is doing.

shopping arcade. it got really crowded later

and here is the famous floating temple

supposedly the rice scoop originated from this island...so there were many rice scoop souvenirs.
like there were rice scoops all made from different woods. quite cool.

and the world heritage thing here is the "floating" temple. but i was cheapo so i just take picture from outside cos i dun wan to pay to go in.

oh and in hiroshima there are two famous foods; one is okonomiyaki and the other is oyster.
so for lunch, i decided to have oyster okonomiyaki. very nice.

shiok. 

now one of the highlights of this trip was climbing the mountain.

it was a really nice trail and the weather was great. i did perspire, but it was all in all an enjoyable hike.

here's a map of the place

and some cautionary warning

"appropriate footwear"?

check.

some people clearly don't read signs.
there were some people that i saw at the top that were walking up in pumps, or dressed like they going orchard road lidat.
but for me, i figured, if my slippers were good enough for the kids in chiangmai, then they are definitely good enough for me in japan. hurhurhur....

the hike started out easy. gradient was gentle at first and the forest not so thick so not so warm.
but higher up it got quite steep and sometimes the foliage was dense....like i transported back to brunei...(no la no fight with brunei)

....outfield?

 the river downstream was nice and picturesque

well, my slippers were really good. they survived the entire trip. except for one bit when i slipped....
and then this happened

GE KIANG

so i spent some time fixing my slippers but after that back to normal...(however next day it really broke.)

taking in the view(actually posing)

view from the top

first peak

the view from the top was great! and after i hit one peak i took another path and that was when i hit another peak before going down. if you look closely at the picture of the first peak, you might be able to see somebody standing on the topmost boulder (these two guys were taking lotsa pictures apparently and i could see the flash from where i was)

so after about maybe 3 plus hours on the mountain, i eventually got back down to the base.
i was really happy to step on a paved path after all that walking on trail. it was actually quite tiring on the knees.
and by that time, the place had become a ghost town. there was nobody left. just me and the deers.
dear deers.

"hello...?"

clearly, it was time to leave. on the way back to the ferry point though, i just happened to be in time to catch the tori gate at low tide. and the scene was....sublime.

remember this guy?

evening time. nice eh?

i could walk all the way out to sea and take pics. so i snapped away haha.

and that was the end of this expedition. 

caught the ferry, took the train(not the electric car cos train faster) and had a wonderful mac dinner. 

then sleep.

heavenly

day 93-96 hiroshima

last weekend i went to hiroshima, simply because i figured this was a great chance to visit the place that got a-bombed.
i reserved a hostel room a few days before and a few days later i booked a bus there and back.

THE BUS CRAMP LIKE WHAT.
when i arrived i could not feel my backside.
worst. bus. ride. ever.
but it was cheap and beggars cant be choosers.
i left on a friday night and came back on tuesday morning.

the entire bus journey was about 13 hours so i arrived on saturday morning.
went to check in at the hostel then i went to explore.
i would like to say that i had a great adventure. but....
the first day was lame. :(

when i arrived i went to one of those visitor centres to get brochures to figure out what to do there( cos i really had no clue when i decided to go)

so one of those brochures says theres a "historical trail" with shrines and stuff. and can go to the top of a hill and all.
so i set out to find this trail. and i found one of the shrines on the map without much difficulty.
but after that....things not so smooth.

i basically just wanted to go from this shrine to the top of a hill and then come down to another shrine and that was supposed to conclude the exploration.
however...i got lost. kind of. and that ruined everything.
it's not like i wandered and got lost.
it's that i kept searching for the way up the stupid hill and i basically walked in circles for hours.
EVENTUALLY i found the temple that led up to the hill and well....

the trail was "meh"
and the hill was "meh"
and the weather was hot like dog
and.....i lost my watch.
WAH  pek chek.

of course i did not realise that i had lost my watch until it was too late.
after the tiring walk up, down and around the hill, eventually i headed back to the train station which was in between my hostel and the hill...and that was when i realised that my watch was gone.
in my mind i was trying to figure out what to do, but at the same time i was desperately looking for a drink cos i was really thirsty.

in the end i decided to go and search for my watch. so i retraced my entire journey.
which means that i went back to the shrine and up the hill AGAIN.
haiz. mission fail.
came home tired. sun-tanned, watchless and with enough experience of that hill to last me a few lifetimes.

i was a bit sian because of that so i decided to take a shower and chill in the hostel for the rest of the night. for dinner i wanted to eat comfort food, which basically means junk food.
so i had lotteria for dinner. it wasn't alot but it was nice.

and that was it for day one of hiroshima.
thankfully the next day was much better.