Miyajima day trip

To break the monotony and in a bid to escape the crap wether we took a day trip to Miyajima, a wee island 45 minutes away by train. The island is home to what's known as Japan's third best attraction, a huge wooden 'torii' or gate that, when the tide is high, sits out at sea in a small bay. The tide was low however so the magnificent torii was mud-locked and all around it elderly Japanese folk dug and rooted around in the mud for cockles. All over the island wild deer run, or more truthfully sit, free and there's many warnings urging visitors to be careful as the deer have a tendancy to eat bag straps and boat tickets. We witnessed first hand a gang of deer attempting to eat a poor Japanese rickshaw driver... and his rickshaw.



The island is pretty small and we took a cable car up to the top to get a clear view of the rest of the archipelago. There are monkeys up there that also eat unsuspecting tourists but luckily they were off having their lunch. The view is great as was the walk back down through the trees that Beth & I took instead of paying 1000000000pounds to ride the car back down.