Miyajima literally means "Shrine Island". It is located in the southeast area of the Hiroshima Bay, and can only be accessed by ferry. The island is famous for the huge "floating Tori gate" that is in the water in front of the main shrine on the island. In reality, this giant red Tori gate is built on the floor of a shallow cove that is dry during the day at low tide, but covered with water in the early morning and late evening (and at night during, high tide). At morning and evening, the gate appears to float in the water.
The island itself is the deity and the main shrine dedicated to the island, who is attributed to be the maritime goddess (water, boats, shipping, travel by sea, etc.).
We arrived at late morning, and the tide was still in, so the base of the gate was still covered by water and it was somewhat foggy with a little drizzle of rain. The main shrine is actually built on "stilts" and at high tide, it also appears to "float" on the water, but the tide had already receded halfway out of the cove and the shrine appeared to be very much on dry land while we rode the ferry across to the island.
We arrived at the ferry terminal and started out toward the shrine and the giant Tori gate, but first encountered the miniature deer at the exit to the terminal building. These miniature deer are all over Japan at shrines and temples, and are fed by the tourists who are sold bundles of big, round crackers, by the locals and the people running the shrine. This is something like feeding the goats at the zoo or the carp at the botanical garden. The zoo sells little bags of goat feed and the botanical garden sets up little vending machines to sell fish food, and the visitors pay for the privilege of feeding the animals for the entertainment value.
Well, the miniature deer are a little more diabolical than the carp or even the goats. They are bigger than the goats can jump and raise up on their hind feet, have the same appetite for eating anything that they can fit into their mouth, and a thousand years of being fed by the visitors to the shrines has them just tame enough to fool you, just wild enough to surprise you, and overtly brave enough to climb over the top of you if they think you might even have something to eat on you.
It's a pretty sick and twisted thing, they have effectively trained semi-friendly attack deer.
So I got a little idea for a little trick. I thought I would buy a bag of the deer crackers, quickly thrust them into Ms. Yokomizo's hands, step back, and watch as the deer "tore her to shreds", chasing her all over the square in front of the ferry terminal, and I got my camera ready to record the event for posterity. Well, Ms. Yokomizo is a little slyer than I had thought (no fooling the locals), she wanted nothing to do with the idea of feeding the deer, refused to take the bag of crackers, instead stepping back, got out her little video camera, and watched with glee as the maniacal little deer chased me around in circles, over concrete picnic tables, and the little demons just would not accept that there was no more food once the bag of crackers ran out, chasing me for a good five minutes and biting at anything they could get ahold of. Somewhere in Japan, there is a little video of me running like a little girl from a horde of rabid miniature deer...
Every great shrine or temple in Japan has it's own shopping street (remember, everything has a mall attached), and Miyajima has Omotesando Shopping Arcade, a long and gradually curving street with just enough curve that you can't see the end so it appears to go on forever. This street is conveniently located directly between the ferry terminal and the shrine, to make absolutely certain that visitors have the maximum possibility to spend a little money going both to and from the shrine.
I was actually looking for a few things, a Daruma charm, a Fudo Myo charm, and some Omamori, all for my cars. The story behind this is that Catholics in the US put little St. Christopher statues in their car for luck and safety, but I drive Japanese cars, and I am reasonably sure the cars are Shinto/Buddhist, and probably wouldn't do well with a Catholic charm, even if I were Catholic, and I am not. So I am reasonably sure it is more appropriate to put Omamori in a Japanese car, and with my bad luck and large number of cars, I need to buy Omamori buy the case.
We passed some child shaped roadside concrete figures, and there seems to be a story behind the different characters they portray.
Ms. Yokomizo, now settled down from her good laugh at my expense with the deer, was now looking for a burnt rice on a stick snack.
I spotted several shops that had charms that looked promising and took note for the trip back so I could stop and buy them on the way back to the ferry.
We came to the end of the shopping street, and found a concrete Tori gate guarded by lions, leading to an avenue of lanterns, bounded on the left by the rocky hill of the island and on the right by the bay.
This led to some beautiful views of the giant floating Tori gate, but I was surprised at how quickly the tide had receded and the floor of the cove was completely exposed with people walking out to the Tori gate. This was the point that I realized the cove was so shallow that the floor was exposed when the tide went out. I had expected the gate to be completely surrounded by water.
Always living up to the "ugly American" stereotype, I had to hike out and touch the Tori gate, wet sand or no wet sand.
