Miyajima (宮島)

My first stop in the country was the island of Miyajima, aka Itsukushima, which is home to the famous torii gate in the harbor. Before I get there, though, there were a number of things that were new and exciting to me along the way. First of all, it was the first time Sarah and I had stayed in a hotel together, and second, I was receiving my intro to Japan: My very first night there, we went to a combini (コンビニ), which is a convenience store, sort of like a gas station grocery, minus the gas station, and my first exposure to Japanese bread. There are lots of appealing-looking Japanese breads there, the surprising part is how many of them have hot dogs inside of them, or things like that. Much to my chagrin as a vegetarian, Japan likes putting meat in everything. EVERYTHING.

The next morning was an introduction to some more food, as our hotel provided some breakfast, and that morning, we were up early enough to eat it. There was passable, but different, french toast, tea, rice and other things I can't now remember. Then, we walked across the street to the train station. This is where I first experienced the efficiency of Japanese public transportation - you put money into the ticket machine, and buttons light up for the stops you've inserted enough money to get to. Then, you get a tiny ticket, which you slide into the turnstyle as you walk through, and it punches a little hole in it and pops up waiting for you at the other end. At every stop, the conductors (all in matching uniforms with gloves - something I'm still not completely used to) preformed the same ritual of checking that nobody was still trying to get on the train - complete with hand motions - before getting on and going to the next stop.

From the train, it was a short walk to the ferry, and from there, just a ten or fifteen minute ride to the island, with the o torii in view from the boat for the last few minutes. It was a short walk to the beach that the o torii is in, and there were plenty of other people there to see it, many of them seemed Japanese and this was my first confirmation that Japanese people do make the peace sign when being photographed. I still don't know why, but, it seems to just be part of the process. The gate itself is quite impressive, and was only a little diminished in my mind when I found out that the Japanese government has replaced it a number of times when it was damaged or destroyed in storms. Any which way, it's quite pretty out there in the water. On the land in front of it, sits a building that is mostly on stilts. The tide was about half out when we were there, but when the tide is in, the building also looks like it's floating, which must be quite neat to see. Apparently, one little building in the complex was a stage for No plays, so the audience would sit on the walkway and look over the water to the stage ten feet away. It sounds like a pretty way to watch theatre. It all made me think of how rarely I've seen things in America accommodate nature, building to fit it, rather than landscaping it to fit the construction afterwards. I really liked the effect, and wish I saw things like that more.

The island is, like many places in Japan, famous for one thing or another - in this case, it is famous for the rice paddle and manju (まんっじゅ). Manju are little maple-leaf shaped cakes that have a filling. We tried a couple while we were there, but I can't remember what flavors other than the kabocha (かぼちゃ) squash one. This is perhaps a good time to mention the deer. When you sit down in Central Park to eat a soft pretzel, you attract the attention of lots of pigeons. When you sit down on Miyajima to eat a manju, you attract the attention of the free-roaming, sacred Sika deer (しか), who are like pigeons in the area. That said, we also saw one pigeon.

When it came to finding other things to eat, we were rather lost, as the island boasted a lot of things with fish or meat in them; a trend I was going to learn to be really annoyed by. Eventually, we settled on one of the two places in town that offered hyatokeki (ホャトケーキ), better known as pancakes (hotcakes).

One last note on the Island of Miyajima: Apparently, this is where the rice paddle was invented. Some buddhist monk came up with it, and started sharing it with people. Because of that, they have what I like to call "The Fuck-Off Huge Rice Paddle," seen here: