Itsukushima Kō

This week the amount we've been doing started to catch up with us, so we slowed down a little bit (but not too much! Lots to see and do!

We visited Hiroshima Friday - we saw the atomic dome and peace museum, which was very sad. Foggy and drizzly but humid weather created a slightly eerie atmosphere. After this to lighten the mood we visited pokemon centre Hiroshima and then shukkeien garden (shrunken scenery garden). Other than the peace museum and atomic dome there is no evidence that the city was destroyed as it is totally rebuilt and otherwise a normal bustling city.

We stayed on miyajima, which is an island that is a 20 minute ferry from mainland Hiroshima. It is busy in the day and quiet at night, and has many deer wandering around. We enjoyed this island even though unfortunately it was very foggy! The quietness in the evenings was very pleasant compared to other places we have been. We viewed the 'floating' torii gate (another of Japan's top 3 views), visited itsukushima shrine, and went up Mt misen but it was too foggy to see anything! If anything it was a bit eerie riding the ropeway into whiteness but it was a pity to not enjoy the view from the mountain. At the top we got to make momiji manju, which is a regional food (maple leaf shaped and slightly maple flavoured cake usually with azuki bean filling - picture of them included!). The island is small and easy to move around so we managed to do all this and still have a good rest.

Sunday we went to himeji on the way to osaka, we left a bit slowly in the morning and were too late to do all the planned activities so chose to go up Mt shosha to visit engyoji temple (where they filmed part of the last samurai). It was possible to enjoy the view (the weather was good!) and the temple grounds are very pleasant. This was just a stop on the way to osaka for the evening, where we'd spend the next 4 nights.

On Monday we went to the osaka aquarium which was really good. Then we met up with Hayley (when we were studying Japanese at the brasshouse a few years ago she was in our class, she now lives and works in osaka teaching English) to explore osaka castle grounds which were very pretty with the cherry blossoms in full bloom, then we went to an arcade together which was fun, then we visited dotonbori which is a famous food strip in osaka. We went to cat cafe (I loved this! Tom tolerated it) and had a nice dinner together.

Tuesday we went to universal studios. We had been warned beforehand the queues here could be really bad, but we were lucky (sortof) that it was a drizzly day so the park was relatively quiet. We had a great time and got to ride everything we wanted to. We really enjoyed the Evangelion 4k ride, the wizarding world of Harry Potter area (I was wearing my butterbeer t-shirt and the staff that noticed seemed impressed) and the Jurassic Park rides.

Wednesday we were originally going to have a day trip to Nara, but we were starting to feel a bit bored of temples and still wanted to go a bit slower so we decided to go back to Himeji to see the castle (it's one of the prettiest castles in Japan) then we had matsusaka beef for dinner (very fancy beef to those who have never heard of it) - it was delicious!

Thursday today, and we're moving on, so posting early!Read more