広島と宮島で過ごす数日間

In this post, I will concentrate on our visit to Hiroshima and Miyajima (also known as Itsukushima).

I will talk about what we did in each place.

This is a really nice part of the country too. The island is especially nice and I wish we had more time there but time wasn’t on our side for this part of the trip.

Day 1

Today was an early start – a VERY early start. I set the alarm for 04:00 so I could get up and shower and be downstairs in time for the hotel shuttle bus to the airport. We were booked on the 05:00 shuttle bus. I was assured yesterday that 90 minutes was enough time to get the bags checked and pass through security before going to the gate.

We got to the airport and this is where the trouble started. We tried to use the self-check-in desks for our baggage but we were told we had to go to the special baggage queue – this was an issue as the queue was quite big and we probably wouldn’t have made the flight. Some woman called people over to the self-check-in desks and she sent us to another self-check-in desk. We tried to check our bags but it said we had no bags on the ticket – which was an issue as we had 2 checked bags each on the ticket. We found someone to help us and he had us try and scan the boarding pass to print the bag tags but this just errored also. He checked his system and he couldn’t see that we had checked in or that we had bags and he told us to go to the special baggage queue. At this point, we had a little over an hour to do everything we needed before the gate closed. I said to him that the queue was huge and we were time-limited. He checked again and magically he was able to print the bag tags for us. Why he couldn’t do that to start with I don’t even know. That set my mood for the morning though.

We left our bags with him and proceeded to the security queue. It was so smooth going through. We didn’t have to take anything out of our bags and only had to empty our pockets and take our watches off. Are you listening UK? This is the direction you should be going in!

We got to the gate and then I went for a wander. I didn’t want to sit down. This airport has some cool travelators. They were bouncy as you were walking on them so I did it a couple of times. The time came for boarding and they did the boarding in groups. We were in group 4 (second to last) so I was expecting boarding to take a while. It didn’t and it went pretty quick. I think that was mostly because the plane wasn’t anywhere near full. I got the window seat and Ken got the aisle seat. Luckily it was just a 2 seat row.

We were late taking off because of the sheer weight of traffic on the runway. As we were taxiing, I counted no less than 4 planes ahead of us and no less than 6 planes behind us. I didn’t realise this would be such a busy airport.

As we were climbing it was a little bumpy (we were told to expect turbulence en route though). About 15 minutes into the flight I looked out and got some great views of Mount Fuji.

Aside from that, the flight was pretty uneventful. I think I got about 20 minutes of sleep on it. I was absolutely shattered. We landed and the weather was better than when we landed in Osaka. We got off and as I was leaving, one of the cabin crew asked if I was cold because I was just wearing a t-shirt. I wasn’t. I love the cooler temperatures. We then went to the baggage carousel to wait for our luggage. We didn’t really have to wait long for our bags to come out. We thought we were being smart by waiting right next to the door of the carousel – only to find out we were at the wrong end of the belt. I went round and got our luggage and we went out to get the bus to the city. There is no train to this airport. It was quite expensive to get from the airport to the city too. It cost Y1670 to get from the airport to the city. This is one of the most expensive transfers we have done.

I did sleep for about 30 minutes on the coach and it was needed as my head was hurting. It had been since I woke up. We got off at Hiroshima Station (Shinkansen exit) and then went to the nearest 7-Eleven to get some food and drinks and then headed to the tram (or streetcar as they call it here) for the hotel.

I said to Ken that I had seen this tram stop on some YT videos that I watched a while ago. I didn’t ever think I would be at that stop. It’s crazy. We went to the platform only to see that it was an arrival platform and we had to turn back around and go to the departure platform.

We were on the tram for about 15 minutes before we got off and then walked down a street to head towards the hotel. We said we should go to the street as it had neon banners and it would be good to see at night and would make for some good pictures.

We got to the hotel and we couldn’t check in, unfortunately. We got access to the Executive Lounge and sat there for about an hour. The views from here are spectacular. It is on the 22nd floor of the hotel. Ken is a Diamond Member so this is one of the perks of that. They had drinks and some food that we could have too. It was awesome. My phone needed a charge so I plugged it in and then I caught the plug and pretty much broke it. That ticked me off too. I was in a bad mood after just getting over the airport mood.

We dropped off some stuff in our luggage and then headed out for a wander. I said we should head towards the Peace Park and the Atom Bomb memorial site to have a look around. It was perfect weather for it and this is pretty much the only day we have with good weather that would be good enough to do it.

We got there and it is great that they have a memorial site for such an atrocious act committed by a nation. I think those who visit from that nation should hang their heads in shame and embarrassment for the atrocities committed by their previous generations (I include myself in this as we are allies).

As weird as this seems to be, it was good to walk around and learn of the atrocities committed here and read the stories of what happened there and to the people in the area. I got some really good pictures to help me remember what happened here.

We came by the Atomic Bomb dome. It was a presentation hall and the blast from the bomb was 160 metres above. It is a miracle that any of it survived the bomb. The bomb was 4 tonnes and had a release load of 15 kilotons of TNT. It was 10 feet in length and 28 inches in diameter. All for what? So it could be tested.

We went and got some souvenirs and some food and drink and then carried on walking around the park and decided to go for a Starbucks before heading back to the hotel to go to the room.

We got back to the hotel and our room was on the 20th floor. It gave some amazing views across the city. I had to have some paracetamol and sleep to try and get rid of this headache. It didn’t work too well. I still had a headache when I woke up.

We went to the Executive Lounge where they had food and drinks again. We were here for about 30 minutes and then went to get some Indian food. Whilst we were there I tried to figure out a plan for tomorrow as we are going to go to the Itsukushima Shrine so we can see the infamous floating Otorii.

We headed back to the hotel to get some much-needed rest and sleep as tomorrow is going to be an early start for the trip to Itsukushima/Miyajima.
Total steps: 14,285

Total miles: 6.72

Below are some pics from today
Day 2 > Miyajima (Itsukushima)
We had decided that today we would go to see a shrine that Ken had seen in a movie. We also decided to do it as it was only about 10 miles from the hotel. I wanted to see it in low tide and high tide and that would mean a full day there.

I misread the tidal patterns on the website and read the high tide as being in the morning and the low tide as being in the evening. I said to Ken we should go in the morning for the high tide so we could see the gate “floating” in the water.

It was an early start for us to do that. I checked the map and it showed we would need to leave around 08:30 to get there for 10:30 – yep, 2 hours to get the 10 miles to it because this city doesn’t have a metro/subway system. It is buses/trams/regional trains.

I decided to go back to the hotel to pick up my jacket as I figured it would be cold on the island and it said it was forecast to rain for about an hour. Spoiler: I didn’t wear my jacket (so it was just extra weight) and it rained (of sorts) for about 5 minutes.

Neither of us really had a good sleep last night and it was a chore to get up when my alarm went off. I had no intention of breakfast and just wanted to get out of the hotel on the way.

We left at the time the map said and I did a quick check and it told us to go a different way. The way it originally said was a walk to the tram and then on the tram for an hour and then a few minutes walk to the ferry and a ferry to the island. Checking again and it said a walk to the tram and then on there for about 20 minutes and then on the train for about 25 minutes and then a few minutes walk to the ferry and a ferry to the island. We did the latter.

We got to the train station and the train it said wasn’t showing. We asked someone at the station and they told us which one to take. The display board on the platform showed the one the map said but it didn’t show up. We ended up getting the one after. We were hoping it would have space for us to sit down but it was standing room only all the way to the station we needed.

We got off and then went towards the ferry. The crowds there were just massive. We found an entrance to the ferry that was for IC card holders and we just went there and got on straight away. It was nice to not have to wait in the queue.

The route we took from the hotel to the island is below.

We got off the ferry and I grabbed something to eat and headed out of the ferry terminal to start the walk to where the Otorii Gate is. On the ferry over we saw the gate and were a little underwhelmed and both said “I really hope it’s not just this”.

As we started to walk towards the gate, we were stopped by someone conducting a survey. Ever the gentleman, I stopped and filled it in – for my time I got a pencil top eraser (a baseball glove and ball).

I left the lady doing the survey and we saw deer there. They were cool to see and be up close with. These weren’t like the ones at Nara. These weren’t being fed by people so were not aggressive in any way (except for one I’ll mention later on). We were just amazed with everything we were seeing. It was really cool.

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We went along the sea wall and got some good shots of the mountains and the other side of the water and also a panorama of the mountains and the gate.

We stopped for a few minutes and there was a crowd around a deer that was just wandering around. There was a woman there carrying a dog and the deer saw it then raised its front legs and kicked the woman and the dog. There were gasps all around. Serves her right really. Who brings a dog that close to a wild animal expecting nothing will happen!

We happened upon a Starbucks and went in there (mostly to get warm) and sat there for about 45 minutes. I was able to go out onto the balcony and get some more pictures.

We left here and I picked up some souvenirs and we carried on walking. We were trying to get pictures with as few people as possible in them but there was no chance of this. We were able to get some good pictures of the gate on the way around. I realised that the tide was going out and this was not what I wanted. Like I said, I misread the website that talked about the tides time. It was cool though. The gate still looked good.

We carried on walking around the path and saw a sign for the ropeway and I said we should do it and we walked that way. We saw a funny sign that said how long it was to the ropeway and then in brackets a lesser time if you ran).

We saw some more deer in the gardens and just watched them for a few minutes before heading to the ropeway. We came across a bridge and then went down to the water and this is where the fun started.
Once people were out of the way we got some good pictures and we both decided to just keep walking along the river at river level. It was really nice and scenic and made for some questionable choices from both of us. Ken was loving it. I was loving it. I did get some scratches whilst climbing the few rocks and mounds that were there. Of course, we both had to do our stupid poses too.

At the start of doing this, I decided to put the action camera on and I’m glad I did. I was walking down a path (of sorts) to the water and slipped (luckily I didn’t fall) and you can see it in the video below. My heart was racing after this. It was funny as hell.

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We carried on walking and were able to walk along the river for about an hour. I questioned my decision at several points of the trek. I’m not as agile as Ken but did it nonetheless. Some of the routes he took I didn’t because I didn’t trust myself well enough to be able to make it. One of them was up about 12 rocks that I just couldn’t do. I found another way and scratched my leg doing so. War wounds they will now be called.

We got to a point where we thought the path was and we saw Bambi there. Bambi didn’t like us being there as it jumped in the water to get away from us.

We carried on walking and then got to a point where we couldn’t really go any further without the risk of hurting ourselves. We found a way up and back onto the normal path. I got most of this trek on the action camera.

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We walked up to where the ropeway was and it said there were another 100 steps up to the top and we both decided we didn’t want to do it. We decided to just walk back towards the pagoda we saw and as we did we joked about ankle rolls and stuff like that. No longer had we joked about that than I rolled my ankle and gracefully fell to the ground without damaging any of my tech. How I wish I had the action camera on to capture it. Oh well. It wasn’t meant to be shown.

We got to the bottom and then walked up the steps to the pagoda and the shrine. We weren’t too bothered about going into the shrine but we wanted to see the pagoda. We did that and then walked around the shrine and then headed back down to the bottom.

I did a timelapse of the trek down after my almighty roll, drop, stop. You can see that in the video below.

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We walked along a street that was full of food and souvenir shops. All the same old crap really. It was starting to rain here – if you could even call it that – and we said that was our cue to go back to the ferry and head back to the hotel.

We stood in a queue and then Ken saw another shorter one and we went into that one and got on the ferry straight away and left a few minutes later. It was nice to be on the island but it was also nice to be heading back to the city.

We got off the ferry and headed to the tram stop. There was already a tram there but it was packed and I said we should just wait for the next one because we could be first on and get a seat for the hour journey that it would take. It certainly didn’t feel like that long on the way back though.

We got off at the Atomic Bomb Dome stop and went to the 7-Eleven to get something to eat and drink and then walked to Starbucks to get something to drink. On the way, Ken saw an electronics shop that he wanted to look at. I managed to find a power adapter to use here after mine broke yesterday. It cost me all of a tenner for it. Hopefully, it doesn’t blow up the hotel overnight when my stuff is charging.

We got back to the hotel and went up to the Exec Lounge for some food and drink and stayed there for an hour before coming back to the room and then going on to Neon Alley to take some pics.

All in all, it has been a good day today despite my battle scars. If you come to Hiroshima you should definitely take the time to go to Miyajima.
Total steps: 18,104

Total miles: 8.61

Below are some pics from today
Day 3
Today was the last day we had in Hiroshima. We didn’t really have anything planned. It’s a good job we didn’t have anything planned as the weather was awful. I slept in until about 10 and I opened the blinds and it was raining. The clouds were dark and low and coming in over the mountains. It wasn’t a good sign for the day.

We decided to head up to the executive lounge for an hour and just have some snacks and drinks. It was still raining and we were both decided what to do between leaving the hotel and heading to the airport. Ken asked one of the workers if we could stay in the exec lounge and she said we could until about 15:00. That wasn’t so bad as we would only have a couple of hours outside with nothing to do.

As we were sitting there, I got a text message from the airline. It said that our flight back to Tokyo had been cancelled. We had about 8 hours’ notice of this. They said it was cancelled due to high winds at Haneda. I tried to manage the ticket online but because it wasn’t bought through the airline itself, I had to call the Japan Airlines contact centre.

Ken asked the worker if she would help us and she did. She called the number and handed the phone to us saying it was in English anyway. I held on the phone for about 10 minutes and said to Ken that we should just get the train back to Tokyo. The lady booked us a taxi back to the station (we didn’t want to walk because of the weather).

We got to Hiroshima station and went to look for some tickets for the Shinkansen. We stopped to top up our Passmo cards first and as we were I heard an English voice ask if we could help. It was a couple from Winchester and we helped them figure out how to top up their IC cards. We then went to look for where to buy tickets for the train. We asked a couple of people and they said the green ticket machines or the ticket office. We went to the ticket office and this same couple were there in the queue ahead of us.

They looked around and saw a counter for foreigners and then came back and told us. There was another guy in the queue ahead of us and he must’ve heard the other couple mention the counter to us and he appeared behind us. He asked if he could get in front of us since he was in the main queue ahead of us. Ken shook his head. I said no. Ken then said that’s not how it works and the other English guy said no also. The American retorted with ‘Figures’. You don’t try and queue jump with Brits in the queue. Queuing is our national sport and past time and we won’t have anyone jump the queue.

We bought tickets for the 14:43 train to Tokyo. The guy behind the counter said no window seats were available. He said there were only middle and aisle seats. Ken was adamant he didn’t want a middle seat. The guy said there were 2 aisle seats available a couple of rows apart. When I went to get my ticket there were no aisle seats available. He spent so long pissing about issuing the tickets. I was annoyed as I didn’t want to sit in the middle seat either. I wanted a window or aisle. I’m glad we got reserved seats though. I didn’t really feel like standing all the way to Tokyo (about 4 hours).

I felt my arse cheeks clench when they said the price of the tickets. It was ¥19,670 for reserved and about ¥18,500 for non-reserved. Reserved it was. The ticket ended up being about £103. I now have to try and contact the airline to get the money back for the flight that we couldn’t use. It’s gonna be super fun. I won’t let it go though!

We got on the train and it was a nice smooth ride. Ken got his aisle seat and I got the middle seat and it was nice to have only one person beside me for a few stops. I could have used the window seat much better though. I would have been looking out for it the whole time. He was sleeping for a lot of the journey. Shame.

After an hour or so into the journey, a passenger occupied the aisle seat next to me and it was hella cramped after that. He was a round giant so he took up a lot of room. I am a big guy but I try not to let my Michelin Man rolls overflow to someone else. This guy wasn’t having any of it. He was taking up as much room as he could. He also had luggage that was in the aisle causing an obstruction. If you can’t fit it between the seats at the end of the carriage, you have to either have it next to you or fit it on the overhead racks. If this doesn’t work you can only stow it in the luggage compartment in the vestibule if you have paid for a luggage reservation ticket. It’s mad that they don’t just have them free for use.

I had to get up several times on the journey to stretch my legs and whatnot and it was a chore for this guy to get up. I joked with Ken that I needed to give him 2 weeks’ notice of my intention to get out of the seat. It was winding Ken up though because when he moved he would pretty much put his arse in his face. It was like a badly choreographed ballet getting him out of the seat and me out into the aisle. I stayed out of my seat for about 10-15 minutes at a time. A lot of that was spent at the door looking out the window impressed at the speed at which we were going and how smooth the journey was. I managed to get some videos that showed the speed at which we were going. You can see them below.

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All in all, the journey was about 550 miles and took about 3 hours and 40 minutes. Not bad going I’d say.

We got back to Tokyo station and went to the barriers and got through and went to the platform for the train here. It turns out it was the wrong platform and we had to switch at the next station to come back. I said to Ken when we got to Kamata that we should tell them we got on at Tokyo so we didn’t have to give the Shinkansen tickets over like we did when we came back from Mount Fuji.

We got to Kamata and went to go out and the barriers wouldn’t let us out so we told the worker and they charged us from Tokyo to Kamata and we got to keep our Shinkansen tickets. Result.

As soon as we got out of the station we could hear and feel the wind. It was blowing quite hard and it was making it super cold. We commented that it was no wonder the flight got cancelled. We definitely wouldn’t have wanted to land in this. The trouble with only having 2 airports in Tokyo is that the other one would have been affected by the wind too so we probably would have either gone back to Hiroshima or diverted to an airport out the way not knowing how we would get back to Tokyo.

We got back to the hotel and went and had some food. We were both hungry and super tired. It was nice to have an early night. I didn’t want to be out in the cold and wind anyway so it was probably a good idea that we didn’t stay out any longer than we had to.

All in all, Hiroshima was a good visit and somewhere that you should definitely visit if you are in Japan.
Total steps: 4,167

Total miles: 1.95