This morning we took 45-minute boat ride from Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park to Miyajima Island. Known for its sacred mountain, the island has a large vermilion shrine built on the water with a “floating gate”. (I’ll leave it to Ella to describe how the O-torii Gate floats and sinks with the tides.)
Miyajima is also known for its oysters which you can get grilled, steamed, fried, or fresh out of the shell ready to slurp.
But outside of the commercial bent, the island is basically one big forest preserve on a mountain with shrines placed in spots where one wouldn’t need religion to worship the natural surroundings.
/After visiting the waterfront Itsukushima shrine, we followed a path up the mountain that led to what the Japanese call a “ropeway” which is a modified chair lift that dangles you above the forest as it slowly hauls you up the mountain. The thing about this forest (which is like most Japanese forests seen from a distance whether you’re suspended in mid-air or not) is that the foliage is so thick it makes the mountain look it’s covered in fur.
On the holy mountain, Mt. Misen, , two remarkable trees, the andromeda and the Japanese maple, crowd together to create a wooded shag that, even hovering closely above on the ropeway, looks impenetrable.
So there I am above the trees like a hawk riding a thermal when the chair lift wobbles to a stop and I am jarred by a host of tourists in a scramble to make it up the stone steps to the “observatory”.
I try to scramble, but all I can do is lurch. Still I make it to the top and get my shots of the furry islands humping up out of the bay.
But let’s hear it for the remarkable trees.
