Friday, 21 November 2025

I’m in Hiroshima so “what to do?” Yeah, visit the Peace Dome again and then take the fast ferry to Miyajima for the rest of the day.

There were a couple of other places to visit in Peace Park before my ferry ride (you had to book fixed times in both directions).

The Peace Bell, which I rang. Still a bit tricky with only one hand with the other attempts to video it. Then there were the paper cranes at the Children’s Peace Monument.

then a short walk to the ferry pier.

The fast ferry is close to my hotel (any guesses why I picked that hotel?) and takes about 45 minutes to reach Miyajima. There is a regular ferry too, which runs from the closest mainland point to the island, but you need to take a tram and a train to get there and the whole trip takes about an hour and a half so the fast ferry is a win, assuming you can get tickets and can visit on a weekday.

Once on the island the obvious target was the Itsukushima Shrine Otorii Gate, aka the floating torii.

There were a lot of people visiting the island, including school groups.

Not only did they have a guy, I assume a teacher, with a megaphone telling them stuff, like look like you are enjoying yourself, but they also had a photographer likely telling them the same thing as he recorded the trip.

The gate is certainly impressive.

As the name suggests it belong to a shrine and so to get closer you get to visit the shrine too.

The shrine also sits over the sea.

Everyone wants a photo with the lamp and the torii in the background so naturally there is a queue to do that. While queuing it gives you time to consider your shot, especially when you are alone and don’t want to ask someone else to take a typical shot of you in front of the torii. From a distance it seemed like if you positioned the torii correctly you might make the lamp seem like it was lit. It was an interesting idea worth trying but it didn’t really work. This is the best shot I got with that idea.

so given I had waited to try that shot I got a more standard one too, minus me.

I wondered what it would be like side on and if that was possible from shore, rather than the dodgy boat that took tourists around and through it.

I saw a deer, there were a lot of them stalking people looking for a feed.

I had booked the 4:30pm ferry, which seemed reasonable at the time as it’s close to sunset, so I had a choice, lunch or the ropeway. Yep, the ropeway to Mount Misen. What I wasn’t prepared for was the queue from hell. I must have spent an hour in the queue, climbing up to the ticket office for the ropeway. At one point I wondered if it would have been quicker to just hike it.

at least there was some pretty foliage to admire.

Oh and add snakes to the thing to be aware of in Japan.

The view at the top of the ropeway (it’s in two parts but you can’t stop in the middle) was quite nice but very green.

I would have liked to have hiked to the actual summit but the queuing, both going up and going down, meant I thought I could only allow 30 minutes at the summit and that wouldn’t have been enough time to hike there and back.

The view entering the middle station and then the view leaving it.

I’m in Hiroshima so naturally tonight’s dinner had to be Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki. I used Tabélog to find me a high ranking one and went off in search of it. When I got there it was closed so I checked for the second best one and that was relatively close by and when it came into view there was a queue so I knew it was open. It took me about an hour to make it inside but it was so worth it.

This is the soba being cooked. At another plate the base was being created and I was stunned just how much cabbage and sprouts went into it. It was a massive pile but once cooked and pressed it just looked reasonable.

and the end result was

You get your own stabbing tool to cut it up into pieces suitable for chopsticks.

While I was waiting outside I noticed that the shop on the other side of the street had a mirrored window so here’s the queue while I still had about 10 people in front of me reflected in that mirrored window just for fun (and queuing is boring).

Another moving day tomorrow.