Miyajima Island

When I think about Japan, I think about the thousands of red torii in Kyoto and also the huge red torii in the water, but I never really knew where it was until I started to plan our trip.  I found out it was in Miyajima Island, which is near Hiroshima, so I knew we had to make a trip there. 

There are a couple of different ferry options to get there. The cheapest ferry is a bus ride from the Peace Park and then a quick ferry ride, or you can pay more to catch a ferry straight from the Peace Park. As our accommodation was right near the Peace Park, I decided to just pay more so we could go straight from there.

Nara is a day trip from Osaka, but I couldn't work out how to fit that into our itinerary as I wanted to play our theme park days during the week. Nara is well known for deer which roam around the streets that bow at you, and you are able to feed. I heard that there are also wild deer roaming around Miyajima Island, so I decided that we would skip Nara and enjoy the deer there instead. 

As soon as we got off the ferry, we saw so many deer just wandering around the streets.

                                          

Harri was in heaven with all the deer around and said it was his favourite place of the whole trip. 

                                         

                                         

                             

                                       

As you walk around the island you come across the red torii in the middle of the water (depending on what the tide is doing at the time).  When it's low tide you can actually walk out to and around it. 

                              

                                         

The deer weren't scared at all of humans and were often seen nibbling on people's belongings which cracked us up. 

                                         

                               

                                          

                                

There were a lot of tourists around, but it didn't feel busy at all.  

                                          

                                         

There are lots of different food shops and souvenir shops on the island and we all tried something different to eat for lunch. 

None of us were keen to try these bananas though. 

                                          

There were also pretty vending machines on Miyajima Island. 

We were so lucky to have a beautiful sunny day again, and even though it was winter we just wore light jackets or just a jumper and were warm enough.  It was a beautiful, relaxing day just looking around, taking lots of photos and grabbing yummy food and drinks. 

                             

                                

                           

                                         
We were hoping to go up to the top of the island on the ropeway, but unfortunately it was closed for maintenance.  It meant that we didn't need to spend as much time on the island than we first thought we would, and luckily, we were able to change our ferry ticket to go back to Hiroshima a little earlier than we planned. 
                                           

                                            

It was definitely worth the trip and seeing the deer around the island was so fun, and it made me feel better about not having time to go to Nara on this trip (but we will definitely go next trip). It was such a lovely way to end off our two nights in Hiroshima.