Japan 2008 - Miyajima - Day 7
So, I’ve often tried to explain what it is to drive around in Japan. Since I don’t have an international license, and the fact that the public transit system in Japan is so good, I don’t drive, so I can only make my observations as an interested passenger in various public/private vehicles. Setting aside the somewhat amazingly complicated intersections that can sometimes exceed 4 directions of traffic (and not always at 90 degrees), driving around Japan can be somewhat alarming.
Driving down some residential streets:
Japanese drivers are typically very courteous drivers. Some will shut off their headlights when waiting at intersections to keep from blinding drivers on the other side. Merges are typically handled without much fuss, and pedestrians and bicycles always have the right of way with vehicles stopping at crosswalks to let people through.
Everyone stops at railroad crossings before actually crossing, and moving down some of the narrow side streets becomes an intricate dance of cars trying to get past the really narrow spots on roads that would make US drivers wonder if it was even a real street much less one for two way traffic.
Now, mix in motorcyclists/scooter riders who more or less slide through wherever they can, and you have quite the mix of traffic that still somehow keeps on moving. Of course they’re not perfect, and accidents do happen, but it’s certainly a different experience than in the US.
This was the trip to Miyajima. Miyajima is a small island near Hiroshima. It’s most famous feature is the Itskushima shrine with the giant red Torii gate. When the tide is in the shrine appears to float on the water. The gate itself is not actually anchored into the seabed, but rather stands on it’s own on the floor.
On this day the ropeway cable cars to the top of the mountain were out of order, and as it’s a 90+ minute strenuous hike to the top of the mountain and the temp was about 35C, we decided that we would skip that. We did however make it to the Dai-shoin temple.
This temple is primarily dedicated to the Shingon sect of Buddhism, however, it also services most of other major sects, so is a popular stop for Buddhists. On the grounds of the temple is the Hentojyoku shrine. I’ve written about this place previously, and it has not lost any of it’s magic for me.
Walking in from the outside, you can see various images of Buddha, and a lot of prayer wheels/beads. It’s believed that praying here is the equivalent of praying at each of the 1000 other shrines available, so it’s sort of your one-stop-shopping if you can’t make it to the other 999 shrines. However, for me the feeling of walking into this dark room, that is barely lit by the candlelight equivalents along the ceiling is always somewhat breathtaking. It’s very hard to get a picture of the place given the lighting conditions, but I tried to get a few. I used an old trick of propping the camera on an available flat surface to hold it still long enough for the long shutter speeds required. I didn’t see any signs preventing the use of flash, but, to me it would seem very disruptive to use a flash even though I was the only one present.
That evening, we were treated to dinner at a revolving sushi-bar. Now these are nothing new, but, the place we went to was enormous. The bar was designed with two large islands, each easily 40m in length. With seating on both sides of the island, and the ends expanded, I estimate that the revolving track was over 200m in length! The selection of sushi was quite amazing, with the chefs available for anything you didn’t see or didn’t want to wait for. Some of the more unusual pieces I saw was a prosciutto sushi, and what we called the “bacon” sushi. Yes, I said “bacon.” Now it’s not the smoked, salty stuff we have in the US. In fact I believed they called it “buta kal-bi” meaning “pork kal-bi” or “pork Korean barbecue style.” But it looked like a slice of pale bacon. Now, before you go “blegh!” I have to tell you, it was pretty tasty. It wasn’t salty or nasty, it was rather like eating a lightly seasoned piece of meat with some rice (which is pretty much what it was). But the main attraction was really the bar itself. Not only was the bar huge, but the variety of stuff on the track was phenomenal. All different kinds of sushi, tempura, chicken kara-age (deep fried chicken nuggets), desserts and even fruit went around on the bar.
The prices are all indicated by the type/color of plate it’s on. It was quite the amazing selection. We all ate far more than we should have as exhibited by the many tall piles of different colored plates on our table, but not only was it delicious, just watching the bar go around and waiting to see what new thing might come around was really fun.