Oysters on Miyajima6 Nov 2010
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| Our one and only full day in Hiroshima dawned bright and sunny. Our schedule for the coming week sees us spending two days in Nagasaki, two days in Osaka and then the final two days back in Tokyo. Including travel time on the very fast and comfortable shinkansen trains, this plan gives us a late afternoon burst in a city on arrival and then the full day and night after that. A good way to go to maximise use of the Japan Rail Pass without exhausting ourselves with too much moving around. Our day today was spent shopping and wandering in the morning and then travelling out about 30 kilometres to Miyajima, yet another World Heritage site! Miyajima is a small island with spectacularly high mountains and other environmental values that have led some to speculate that it is one of the most beautiful sights in Japan. We travelled to the Japan Rail ferry by local tram. As part of the reconstruction of Hiroshima, trams from all over the country are used here in a deliberate way. The recycled trams come here when other cities either move to other forms of transport or have no further need for them. The trams are restored and put into service creating a really interesting and varied network. Jane has been enjoying the trams, as they are mostly similar to the W-Class trams she used to drive back in the 80s. Japanese trams and buses in medium-sized cities (1-2 million ) have a system where you pay as you get off the bus or tram by walking past the driver and dropping the correct money into a collection machine which weighs it and tells the driver what you paid. There are no tickets and no inspectors, as everyone seems to do the right thing! Service is taken very seriously here, with even the train conductors bowing as they leave the train car, and taxi drivers wearing uniforms, hats and gloves. We arrived on the island after the ten-minute ferry crossing at 2.30 pm and went for a late lunch on the waterfront. As it is oyster season, Lan went for the oyster set, and the usual delicious array of pickles, soup and salad as well as several huge oysters drenched in egg and crumbed and fried arrived. They were really delicious. Jane had the sashimi set, as she has become even more enamoured of raw fish on this trip. The type of fish used changes depending on where we are and what is available. It is all delicious and when dipped in the mixture of wasabi and soy, even better. Thus fed, we began the trek through the usual covered shopping street where stall holders were selling all manner of fast seafood, rice spoons, little cakes filled with different cream fillings made in front of you with the most amazing assembly line machines, roasted chestnuts, huge fat grilled oysters and the usual array of souvenirs. We had to be careful of our belongings, as we were constantly being watched, followed and eventually nuzzled by deer. Yes, does and bucks everywhere, even more than the cows wandering the streets of India. Deer are revered as sacred animals by the Shinto religion, and have carte blanche on the island. There are hundreds of them. We have heard that some unwary travellers have had their Japan Rail passes swiped and eaten! Halfway up the arcade, we encountered the world's biggest rice spoon, carved out of a single piece of wood and thirty feet long. Little did we know that Australia's penchant for "big" things would be catching! We wandered past the famous floating torii gate, which is on dry land for half the day and in the water when the tide comes in, casting a wonderful reflection at night with well placed lighting. It is a reddish colour, which adds to the beauty of the illumination at night. Luckily for us, we were able to see it in both its incarnations. At low tide, when we arrived, you can walk all the way out to the gate and touch its base; and by the time we were leaving, the tide was beginning to come in and so we were able to to see its reflection in the water at night. The gate guards the beautiful Itsukushima Shrine, a low-slung building with a series of boardwalks over the tidal waters. Throngs of mainly Japanese tourists were taking all this in, and we moved up the hill with them towards our goal, the "ropeway" up to the Misen, a dramatic peak with great views back towards Hiroshima and sea and mountains. We walked up steep stone-paved streets and through autumnal forests and past pristine streams until we reached the ropeway. It turned out to be an enclosed cable car holding up to eight people and it took us up to another station in a fifteen-minute ride. From there we transferred to an even bigger funicular cable car for the last five minutes to the summit. By this time it was getting quite late, and we were treated to a magnificent sunset looking out from the summit to the mountains on one side and sea on the other. Very special. We lined up with the last of the tourists for the final 5.30 return car. Japanese people are without doubt the world's most orderly and polite queuers! The longer we are in Japan, the more admiring we are of the quiet dignity they bring to everything they do. However, we are not too starry-eyed about the place women hold in the society. The glass ceiling is still very much in place here for women who want a career. As we mentioned in an earlier entry, the decision by many young people to either delay having children, or just not have them is emblematic of the huge lack of collective confidence in Japanese society today. By the time we had negotiated the return ferry and caught the train back to the city, it was well and truly time for dinner. We stopped at a restaurant which turned out to be a health food restaurant. All ingredients were listed, as well as the total calories for the meal. We both opted for a chicken and salad combination with the usual attendant miso soup and pickles. Must be one of the healthiest cuisines in the world. Statistics bear this out, as Japanese have the best longevity of any country in the world. Jane is sure it has a lot to do with seafood and portion control. We have really enjoyed our stay in Hiroshima. It is indeed a city that has literally come back from the dead, with the international influences that have helped rebuild it clearly visible in the city and in the global outlook of its people. |
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