My Tummy's diary: Kyushu/Chugoku Japan Day 4

We went to Miyajima on the next day. Took the train to Miyajimaguchi and changed to the ferry

(All these are free with the JR pass too! )

There are a lot more to see than I have expected

Originally we wanted to go to this very famous eel restaurant : うえの by the train station!

http://tabelog.com/hiroshima/A3402/A340202/34000065/

But to eat in, it's a 1.5 hr wait!!!!! so we gave up and thought we'll just go to miyajima island and just look for another restaurant.

Possibly because it's the weekend, there were tons of people there!

There were tons of little food stores/restaurants around Miyajima so we were spoilt with choice

There were also tons of deers too ... roaming around
They are slimmer than those in Nara though :p
Possibly because there wasn't any people selling deer cookies to feed them.

There were quite a few restaurants grilling oysters (Hiroshima/Miyajima's specialties)

But neither of us are a fan of oyster..

We have found another popular grilled eel restaurant いな忠

http://tabelog.com/hiroshima/A3402/A340202/34007506/

Unlike the unagi don we had in London, it doesn't have much of those thick sweet sauce.

It was served with sansho pepper - which is an earthy, tangy lemon spice!

For dessert, we had the Japanese version of gelato con brioche :p

We had matcha icecream with crispy bits served in a bread cone.

The bread was deep fried quickly to warm it up before serving.

It was very nice!!!

This is a very nice little snack, thats fishstick wrapped with different toppings eg cheese and bacon, asparagus etc

Love watching these machines :p
This makes the little japanese cakes stuffed with fillings like red bean paste, custard or chocolate.
You can buy freshly made ones for 90 yen and they are very soft and pillowy

Itsukushima Shrine
The shrine with the world famous floating torii gate.
By the time we got there, it was during low tide so we could walk towards the gate!

It doesn't look right without the water so we've decided to come back again during high tide

We walked up along the designated walking trail, stopped by and said hi to the deers :p

Amazing view :)

We walked up to Daishoin temple at the base of mount Misen.

First things first - tea time :p

There's a little Japanese cafe.

The cakes themselves are so so.
We had a steamed cake and soya milk cheese cake, serve with homemade apple sauce and cream.
But everything looks so pretty though :p

As we walk around, other than the usual amazing features, there are some surprising ones too

eg buddha with blue hair

With scarfs, hats, necklace!

Henjokutsu cave - it contains a fascinating and eerie collection of Buddhist icons related to the 88 Temple Pilgrimage in Shikoku.

We didnt really keep track of the time. We rushed to the ropeway station and managed to take the last train up to Mt Misen..
The trip up itself was magnificent! Even though we didnt' really have much time to properly explore all the temples/view points up there, it was well worth it.
Can't imagine what it would be like in Autumn time when the whole mountain is covered in red leaves! guess we just have to go back some time in the future :p

We went back to the shrine at the end of the day and now.. the gate is finally floating :p

We were starving but most of the restaurants were closed in the island :(
We bought these little cakes again (but this time from another shop) for the ferry trip back.