Trains run from Hiroshima to the small harbour where you can catch a boat to the island. This did not take a huge amount of timetable detective work on my behalf, or even asking any questions. Instead I was able to simply obey the golden rule of going to major tourist destinations: follow everyone else. It wasn't just the foreign tourists either, that day was a national holiday so the train was full of Japanese families and school trips.
The first time that day when I didn’t follow everyone else was on the boat to the island. It was a beautiful day, I mean too hot but that’s a given in a Japanese Summer. As the boat neared the island the torii gate was in clear view at the front of the boat. However, no one could work out whether the boat was going to the left or right side of the gate and people kept swapping sides to try and get the best view. I stood resolutely on my side of the boat, which turned out to be the wrong side and explains why the following pictures have lots of people in the way.
The island itself is full of touristy shops selling the usual tacky souvenirs and overpriced ice creams. But the shops are in nice wooden buildings, there are stone lanterns and other decorative things that make the island quite beautiful.
Including a huge number of deer.
I don’t know how they got over there, maybe they got blown off course thousands of years ago like in Madagascar. One thing is for certain though, not many are leaving the island – I didn’t see any on the ferry. So the population is just going to grow and grow until they take over the whole island and form their own metropolis.
At first they seem very passive and idyllic making a deer city seem quite a pleasant concept.
But as soon as you sit down with an ice cream you realise you’re surrounded. Tongues abound.
Anyway, this is what the gate looks like up close.
This is perhaps not the best view, the best is to be looking directly through the gate but that exact vantage point is the most crowded on the whole island. And anyway, why do we bother taking pictures of things for which there already exists a million and one photographs. In this world of Google Image Search it would be so easy to pretend that you had been all around the world. You just download the images into your camera and say about everywhere, "it was nice," buffered by comments about the weather and someone getting ill.
Once you are there the next thing to do is to get the cable car up mount Misen. A bus runs from near the torii gate to the cable car station some way up the mountain road.
I found the bus stop just as the bus was leaving but feeling Zen, and full of ice cream, I didn’t chase after it. I sat down in the sunshine and waited patiently for the next one. After some time I realised that I was cooking and went into the shop next to the bus stop and pretended to look at things.
It was really nice in the shop, there were several fans blowing cool air in the direction of the sale items.
I was looking at puzzle boxes; I had bought one previously for myself in Tokyo. They are small boxes decorated with tessellated patterns. By sliding different parts of the edges in a certain sequence you can eventually open the box. The one I have takes seven steps to open but there were larger, more intricate, versions in the shop. A woman came over to me to ask if I wanted any help. She told me more about the boxes, one of the more expensive ones, it was about £300, took 60 steps to open. “60!” I said in shock.
“60,” she repeated impassively.
It was so nice in the shop that I ended up buying something – a puzzle version of the Miyajima torii gate. It’s a nice souvenir even without being a puzzle, and the shade was worth something too.
I returned to my bus stop, I was the only one there. Not having anything else to do I took out my puzzle and started finding the one loose bit by which the rest of the puzzle comes away. I kept at it for about 25 minutes until I had taken the whole thing apart and spread the pieces onto the bus seat. For the next 5 minutes I was trying to put it back together again. I felt genuinely Japanese, sitting at a bus stop working my way through a wooden puzzle with infinite calm. I probably looked like a genuine tourist as only tourists buy and use these things.
While I was puzzling I was faintly aware of other people coming up to the bus stop, looking at the timetable and then walking away. A small family had come and sat next to me for a while but they too had eventually looked at the sign and walked off.
After I emerged back into reality from the puzzle I took a closer look at the sign. It turned out that even though I had been waiting for nearly an hour, the bus would not come for another two.
I started walking up the hill and not far along was a sign pointing to the cable car station and stating, "10 minute walk, but 8 if you run a little."
I soon came to a Japanese garden that led to a small bridge.
Posing happily on the bridge was a young Japanese couple. They were both smiling towards their respective cameras which were balanced precariously on a rock. Considering my photographic skills comparable to that of a rock I offered to take their picture. Barely hearing my question they both replied in unison that no thank you, this was what they wanted.
It sounded like they had been asked this question a thousand times before, which is quite probable really: People readily offer to take your picture for you in Japan, and many other countries.
This couple preferred to get a more idiosyncratic set of holiday snaps with the same pose taken from slightly different parts of a rock at slightly different times. But can you imagine how dull it would be to look through their holiday snaps:
"This is us on a bridge in Miyajima. And this is the same but one inch to the left. Which do you think is best? See Honey, Mum thinks one inch to the left is better too."
"Well I can't make my mind up, let's go back."
Over the bridge and up some steps began the cable car.
The view was amazing and increased proportionally with the altitude. Looking forward you could see the long cable car system disappearing over the mountain.
Looking back and you could see how built up the mainland has become.
At the top there was another cable car, a larger one this time which led to an even higher peak. The young Japanese couple happened to be in the same cable car as me and we smiled at each other.
On the main peak there were many views.
But still this was not the top. The official peak of the mountain was another half an hour walk and scores 530 in altitude points (metres).
There were quite a lot of monkeys up in the mountains, and some deer too – building their empire I presume.
The walk up to the top was a little crowded and I kept overtaking people. There were some English speaking people there and they suddenly stopped in front of me to point out a snake in the shrubs at the edge of the path. Everyone who understood stopped to look at it, except for me, I just slid by like an opportunist.
Up and up, the path got narrower and rockier. Every now and then a small stall selling drinks would appear as if randomly around the bend. I think the price increased the further up you went – would make sense, market forces and all that.
At the top was a sort of restaurant with an open air flat roof – definitely the highest point on the island.
The top of the mountain looked like this.
And the ground looked like this.
I became slightly obsessed with an ashtray that I thought probably had one of the best views of all the ashtrays on the planet. Very hard to get the right thing in focus though.
On the way back down a deer was sniffing around two Caucasian men sitting on a rock. They had beer which they poured into their hand and were feeding to the deer. The men were laughing sadistically while the deer seemed to become instantly hooked and, ingeniously, tried to cut out the middle men and go for the beer can itself.
It can’t be good to feed animals alcohol; it’s just going to make them sick and ruin their football career. Having said that I’m not much of a prude because I can imagine that a TV show about drunk animals could be quite funny. Owls flying into trees, cats not landing on all fours, hamsters tripping up in their hamster wheels, octopi getting into tangled and dolphins just being dolphins.
Here is the deer before it met the ne’er-do-wells.
What an odd phrase ne’er-do-wells is.
I was pleased with this picture: a tiny yacht sailing toward a tiny island.
On the way down I decided to walk rather than take the cable car. One of the main walking routes down the mountain starts near the cable car and follows a stream flowing down the mountain.
The whole walk was shaded under the trees and was idyllic in the extreme. I was feeling really happy again and stopped to sit on a bench and admire the scene.
A large fly landed on my leg. In my happy state I didn’t brush it off but did become suspicious when it settled. “Do you mean me harm?” I asked it. It turned to face me and I got a painful sting in my leg.
It was a horse fly, or some other bastard of nature.
I shook it off and started walking again when I heard a buzzing. The buzzing stopped and I felt something on my arm. The fly had settled on my wrist ready to strike again. I did one of those tantrum movements people do when there’s a bug flying around. But the fly came back, landed on my arm again entirely unperturbed.
I started to pick up my pace to shake off the thing. I was listening intently for its sound, I couldn’t hear it but then I felt something on my back. It wasn’t paranoia either, the damn thing was there, I felt it fly away as I brushed my hand over my Tshirt.
There was no shaking it off and I resorted to running down the mountain as fast as I could to shake it off. My face turned red and I was in danger of tripping over. I slowed down but buzzzzz, the horse fly was back, apparently able to fly as fast as I could run – which is rather depressing.
I ran and ran and ran and ran along the path. Leaping from soil to stone to tree branch, half falling half sprinting down the mountain. I was determined to get away from the horse fly. I slowed again and STILL it was there. I was swearing at it by now, there was no one else around so I gave it the full force of my vocabulary.
When I emerged through the trees at the foot of the mountain my face was bright red and my Tshirt was drenched in sweat. On the flat again, walking through nicely kept Japanese gardens the fly eventually let me go and I was safe.
I stopped to buy myself a drink and try to cool down before I went anywhere with people.
The tide had gone out by this time and the torii gate now looked like this.
You can safely walk on the mud and go right up to the gate to take pictures.
I bought a hat from a shop to protect myself for the sun during my epic cycle ride the next day. Although I liked the hat I suspected it was for elderly women and was always a bit reluctant to wear it in public.
Later on when I was back in my hotel and telling Yoko the horrors of the fly saga she said, “I’m not surprised; you use too much gel in your hair, it attracts them.” This was not what I wanted to hear. I wanted sympathy not advice, especially not advice that makes it out to be my own fault.
Bastard fly.
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