Heavenly Miyajima

The misty isle of Miyajima was thought to be heaven on earth back in the days, in this case heaven on earth is a sleepy tram and ferry ride away from Hiroshima. Nowdays the isle is regarded as one of the top 3 most beautiful sights in Japan, even with ferral monkeys and deers pestering the tourists.
As you approach the island by ferry the large impressive golden gate stands tall in the waters welcoming you onto the floating shrine. The island is also known to be covered in maple trees that would come to life in a cloud of magnificent burning red leaves in Autumn. As a result the maple leaves are the symbol of the island and they even make a special Miyajima sponge cake with the motif.



Unlike the sweet deers in Nara, the deers on Miyajima are really feral and dirty looking. Maybe it's because there are no special deer biscuit vendors here and these deers are left to fend for themselves scavenging from the sorry tourists. Once they see you with food then you're doooooomed... You can run, but you can't hide.

There were ferral monkeys at the top of the mountain, unfortunately they were having lunch in the forest at the time. I was told though they're really big, ugly and scary so maybe it was good that we didn't see them. Judging by the warning signs around, they might have been trouble.



We rode the convenient cablecar/ropeway up the lush mountain and spent 2 hours climbing up and then down the whole thing. There are little temples, lookouts and shrines dotted throughout the forest mountainside... But after an hour of descending endless dangerously crooked stairs I was ready to crash back to flat lands.