The trio went for a walk this morning, but didn't find anything of interest except the river. We will have to try a different route tomorrow. Today we had a new taste at breakfast - a mug wort roll - green both in color and taste. I'm glad I tried it, but I don't think it will make the top ten list. I chatted with Junko after breakfast about the drinking age as we have seen so many vending machines that dispense beer. She said that the standard age for drinking, smoking and voting in Japan is 20. We also talked about tattoos because I haven't seen any (at least blatant ones) since we arrived here. She said that it is considered a gang symbol so no one does it. We got on a local train today and traveled to a small city on the Inland Sea where we caught a ferry boat to the island of Miyajima. There are only 2000 people living on the island (12 square miles) and they all live near the ferry dock on three short streets. There were deer on the island, but they weren't as persistent as the last ones as the tourists don't feed them. This island is famous for a 50 foot tall Torii gate (see photo) which stands in the water at high tide. We got there at low tide and you could walk out and touch the bottom of the gate, but when we left the island, the tide was rising and the bottom of the gate was in the water. There was a kindergarten class having their picture taken in front of the gate. They were very cute. The Torii gate is in front of the Daisho-In Temple. This was an enormous complex of buildings including a five story pagoda. At one building, we saw a priest giving a blessing of purification to three business men who had come to thank the gods for their success. We were able to spin the prayer wheels as we descended one staircase. We say many statues (some of them quite impish - see photo) and a reclining golden Buddha. We also saw a statue of a Tengu, a winged creature with a long nose, who supposedly possesses supernatural powers. We also saw a statue of a tanuke which is a comic badger figure. Because the island is considered sacred, no one is allowed to die or give birth on the island as both are considered unclean. We figured we would have a very safe day. We saw a highly arched bridge (see photo) that was only open when the emperor's envoy came to visit the temple. He would wear his formal wear and wooden clogs so they would build a staircase on the bridge so he wouldn't slide to the bottom. We then went on a nature walk up the mountain. It was a beautiful day today except for a few brief passing light showers. The walk was lovely and we stopped in a small oyster restaurant for lunch. This island is famous for two food items - one is oysters. In fact, we saw a number of oyster rafts in the sea as we were coming over on the ferry. Lana, John, Dave and I opted out as we are not fond of oysters - so we had other choices. After lunch, we went to have dessert. This is the other famous food item. They are small maple leaf shaped pancakes filled with a variety of things. We chose chocolate and they were served WARM - yum! We could see the whole operation through a glass window. The machine making the waffles was very interesting. In our wanderings, we came across the world's largest rice scoop! I suppose everyone has to have a tourist draw. After poking around on the shopping streets, we headed back to Hiroshima. On the train, there were some primary school children from a private school who were taking the train by themselves because school had let out. I don't think they could have been older than 8. They were very cute, but didn't want their picture taken - very shy. We checked out the shops above the Hiroshima train station and will go out to eat about 6 tonight. Just got back from dinner - we checked out restaurants in the train station and the department store, but Dave had a hankering for beef or at least something where he didn't have to guess what he was eating so we split up and Dave and I went to McDonald's (not my favorite, but it was okay). We will have to find out tomorrow where the others had dinner. We walked down to Seven-Eleven (yes, they have them here, too) on the way back to the hotel to pick up some snacks for the plane ride home. We have a long day tomorrow as we will travel by bus to visit some other islands.
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