Japan, day 11: Miyajima Island

On Sunday, we took a ferry to Miyajima Island, where we spent the next night in a ryokan. The island is a popular day trip destination, and at that time it is very crowded, so it makes sense to stay overnight. Two nights would be even better, there are a lot of things to see and do on the island, but as usual we didn't have enough time. We started by walking towards Itsukushima Jinja Shrine and its awesome "floating gate". The gate doesn't really float, it just looks like that at high tide. (At low tide, you can walk around it.) We booked a kayaking tour in advance and had the privilege of passing through the gate in our kayak. The original purpose of this gate was for the boats approaching the sacred island to pass through it, the same way people pass through Shinto gates on foot. We also paddled around the bay and learned about oyster platforms, and then we checked into our ryokan and had a Kaiseki dinner there. It was an awesome day!

Here  we are starting to walk along the shore towards the shrine.

There are deer on Miyajima Island, too.

Our ryokan is located a bit further along the shore. It is too early to check in, but we left our backpacks there...

... and, after some coffee/tea and pastries back near the shrine, were ready for our kayaking tour.

Our tour guide, Chin, was great! - charming and considerate, unlike the second group who booked that tour, a family of four, who were almost an hour late... But it all worked out for the best! First, Chin let us wait for the other group on the water (so we were fooling around in the little channel there). And then, once Chin realized, how late they were going to be, he took us on kind of a private tour through the gate (because he was worried, and rightly so, that the tide would go out and it would be too shallow around the gate). 

Then, when the other family finally arrived, he took us all to the gate (because it was still possible) and around the bay. So we went through the gate twice.

In the last photo, that thing behind us is the oyster platform. They use it to harvest oysters.

Lunch that day kind of didn't happen, because by the time our tour was finished (much later than expected), all the day tourists were gone from the island all all the little cafes closed. But finally, we were able to check into our ryokan and have a scrumptious dinner.

That ryokan didn't have an in-room onsen, like the one in Hakone, but it was also very nice. There was a public onsen, which Alex definitely used (and I possibly did, too - I don't remember). Every hotel or ryokan where we stayed had a public onsen, but because - understandably - no photos are allowed, it is hard to remember the details.

> Day 12