Since I last spoke to you... Hmmm... I can't remember exactly when I last spoke to you, I'll check in a moment. But I've been having a nice time on Miya-jima and have now returned to Hiroshima.
Ah, right. I think that was posted sometime around midday, so that after posting that I wondered off to another of Hiroshima's parks to visit the Contemporary Art Museum which was doing a pleasant exhibition of sculpture.
After my second night in Hiroshima I took a tram and a Ferry to Miya-Jima where I have been staying for the last three nights. It was a beautiful sunny day when I arrived, so after booking into a very nice Ryokan in the main village I spent the afternoon walking along the coast of the island and visited some of the beaches. The are some incredibly tame deer that hang around the village, especially outside the ferry terminal, looking for food from the large quantity of tourists coming through. I have even seen them walk into the ferry terminal and start eating the tourist information leaflets (why amongst everything in the terminal they would go for these I'm not sure).
Unfortunatly the weather did not hold, and by the next morning it was pouring with rain. Nevertheless I got dressed up in my waterproofs (which have now become very dear to me) and climbed up Mt Misen. Having climbed to observation tower on the top via the temple Daisho-in and discovered that the only thing to observe were the inside of clouds, I took the cablecar back down, taking a look at the monkeys hanging around the top station on the way.
Yesterday the weather was again poor, though a slight improvement on the day before. In the morning I waited for high-tide before visiting the shrine Itsukushima-jinja and got to see it at it's most impressive, rising straight from the sea. After an early lunch I then headed up the mountain again, this time taking the cablecar to the top (seeing more monkeys) and walking back down by a different route. Thanks to the slightly better weather yesterday I did manage to get a few looks at the rather spectacular views when the clouds parted.
Today, after my final night on the island, and waking up to a pleasant, sunny day (though not as hot as previously) and finally being able to actually see the top of the mountain from the ground. I caught the ferry back to Mija-jima Guchi and took the tram back again to Hiroshima, where I have now booked two nights accomodation.
Today and tommorow I should have enough time to visit all of the important things in Hiroshima that I wasn't feeling up to before and plan where I will head next. I will try and get another update in before I leave Hiroshima to let you know what I've seen and where I'm off to next.
Posted by Haifisch at April 21, 2003 03:59 AMOdd... in the past twenty-four hours, while everything else in this entry has stayed the same, the title has changed. I'm sure yesterday it said Mountains and Rain. Now it's Rain, Deer and Mountains. Perhaps you're just keeping us on our toes. Yes, we really do read your log entries!
Posted by: Graham at April 22, 2003 08:40 AMhi thomas! having a lovely summer hliday so far! i have developed an intrest in photography recently so i would love to see some more photos. i can't wiat for the term to start. sounds weird, i know, but this is because my year is going to borreton (can't spell) adventure park in surry. sorry, i'm making this a bit long. hope to hear from you soon!
Posted by: Helena Bickley at April 22, 2003 06:51 PMYes, I did chabge the title actually. I happened to think of one that I thought sounded more interesting so I changed it. And as for photographs Helena do you have any special requests? I can just try to pick a few nice ones but there are an awful lot of them (several hundred) and if your interested in anything in particular it might be worth asking.
Posted by: Haifisch at April 24, 2003 01:42 AM