To Miyajima

Today we decided to just hop on a train and begin our journey toward Miyajima. It required a lot of train hopping. Fortunately with our rail passes, all of this was free. We took a subway to catch our first Shinkansen (bullet train) to Osaka. From Osaka we took another Shinkansen to Hiroshima. From there, we took a local train to Miyajimaguchi station, then took a ferry to Miyajima Island. Our day's travels would be the equivalent distance of going from Richmond, Virginia to Cape Cod in Massachusetts except there's no way you could cover the same ground in the U.S. in the same amount of time as here.

We dropped our things off at the ryokan (a traditional style of Japanese inn) and proceeded to check out the famous red torii gate. It was low tide, so we could walk out to it and take some pictures. We weren't out too long because we had to be back in time for our traditional Japanese dinner. We put on our yukata and sat on the floor as we were served all kinds of . . . interesting looking food items. Of what I know, or could identify, we had oysters, eel tempura, beef salad, sashimi, cabbage stuffed with meat, some sort of weird  soup with whole fish in it, and a salad.

Here you see Nicole enjoying her favorite part of the meal (and most predictable) -- rice. I tried to sample a little bit of everything, but some things just had an overpowering odor that was like a punch in the face. At one point, I was eating a little ginger, but had to stop because it had been lying under a fish and tasted absolutely nothing like ginger anymore. I ate most of my sashimi (raw fish), my eel tempura, and the cabbage meat stuff. I even tried an oyster, which was rather chewy. I think I was more successful this round then my last visit.

One difference between that time and this one is that we were given the option of a western-style breakfast this time. Last time I faced the unpleasant task of eating an entire fish -- eyes, skin, and all for breakfast. Tomorrow we can relax knowing that there will be some sort of attempt at familiar foods, so that we won't hit rock bottom and end up binging at a Panda Express at the Kyoto train station (true story). After dinner, we went out one last time to take pictures of the torii gate at night and then returned to the ryokan for a good night's rest.