An early start to the day as we headed to the station to catch another Shinkansen, heading further west to Hiroshima. It takes just over 2 hours (discounting the standing at stations) to travel the 224 miles, speeding through the countryside. Except it wasn’t really countryside, as you’d call it in the UK. There’s no rolling fields, it’s all suburban. It seems that except for the mountains, everywhere we have seen has been built up, the trip was an endless strip of city and suburbs. There’s an occasional field, sliced into strips, some with cereal or rice, others cultivated with a variety of plants, like an allotment. In one small section, there were longer sections of fields, but every couple there were groups of 4-5 houses. Japan has a population if 127m, that’s over twice the UK, but a population density nearly 3x as much. And if you can’t build in the many mountains, that means they’re nearly all squeezed into the coastal plains. We saw no real farmland- where do they grow the rice? And definitely no animals in any of the fields. Just houses and more houses.
Arriving on Hiroshima we jumped onto a local tram, dropped the bags off and then nipped back to the station to get a train out to Miyajima island. Well, a train to catch the 10min ferry ride across the sea to the island. We were there to see the floating shrine. Unfortunately, it wasn’t floating today, as we arrived at low tide.It basically stuck up out of the mud.
Before we got there, it was time for me to try the local delicacy – BBQ oysters. Well, grilled oysters as they are called, but they’re basically cooked on a BBQ. Served with a squeeze of line they were great.
We headed onto the beach for a quick paddle and to stare at the torii. This is usually photographed sticking out of the water, we got sand and barnacles.
The shrine is quite small really, bridging across the two sides of the bay. As we reached the middle, we got caught up in what looked like a marriage – the first marriage by interpretive dance I’ve seen. Well, it looked like a marriage party and I assume the ceremony took place elsewhere, but we just say the man in the mask do 10 mins of dance to drums, flutes, kazoos and a broken bagpipe. (I don’t know what the instruments actually were but that is what they sounded like).
More photos, more beach wandering and the ferry took us back to the mainland.
We tried one of the izakayas this evening, a sort of pub that serves a mix of food. This one was the first one we had been too with no English, so it was a matter of point and hope. I ended up with a mixture of rice in stock, chicken cabbage and egg, which I am informed via Twitter was ‘oyako donburi’ . Very nice it was too.
Tomorrow we head to the Atom Bomb dome, as listed on the signs.
Finally, my sign of the day. Everyone needs an emergency Escape Mouth.
Today’s photos can be seen on Flickr
Day 12 post – Nara
Day 11 post – Kyoto : Day 10 post – Kyoto : Day 9 post – Race day at Suzuka : Day 8 post – Sill at Suzuka : Day 7 Post – Suzuka : Day 6 Post – Hakone to Nagoya : Day 5 Post – Hakone : Day 4 Post – Tokyo : Day 3 post – Tokyo : Day 2 post – Tokyo : Day 1 post – Tokyo
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