the random oracle

Japan has three “Great Scenic Views” (三大景), the most famous of which is the the floating Shinto shrine of Miyajima.  So, when I realized that I had 7 days of free travel on all Japan Rail lines with my JR Pass, I figured that a 2 hour ride out to see the shrine was worth it.

The shrine itself is on Miyajima island, so the trip there required a Shinkansen train to Hiroshima, a local train to Miyajima-guchi (宫岛口), and a ferry to Miyajima itself.  The shrine is called Itsukushima Shrine (严岛神社) was built in the 6th century but subsequently rebuilt in the 12th century.  It’s one of the first things that pops to mind when someone says “Japan” so I had to see it firsthand.

The ferry ride from Miyajima-guchi to Miyajima was the smoothest ferry I’ve ever taken.  Waiting for the ferry to start, I kept perusing my guidebook for tidbits about its history.  When I lifted my head wondering why we still hadn’t left yet, I realized that we were actually already halfway there!  Unfortunately in my closer reading of the Lonely Planet guide, I came across the following devastating fact: the shrine is only submerged at high tide!  I crossed my fingers as we approached Miyajima in the hopes that by some miracle we’d arrive at high tide, but as we got closer it was clear that it was nowhere near high tide: there were people walking around the base of the shrine, which was standing in a mass of seaweed.

I figured that since I was there anyway I should make the best of it and check it out.  Unfortunately the shrine is nowhere near as impressive when it’s not submerged.

My one consolation was that there were lots of cute deer wandering around the island.  There were three at the exit of the train station but I thought that they were just a random fluke; turns out the entire island is crawling with deer, who are completely comfortable around people and will just sit there while tourists photograph and tease them with food.  In fact there were signs everywhere with the warning, “Be careful of deer, they eat paper!”  Boy did they know what they were talking about.