04/02/11 Hiroshima - Miyajima　宮島

This blog post is going to be about our first day in Hiroshima. We went to Miyajima so hope you enjoy this post! It's going to be quite long with lots of photos.

We took a night bus to go to Hiroshima which took around 6 hours from Osaka. I for some reason can’t sleep well on a bus so I didn’t really get much sleep. The bus dropped us off at around 6am at Hiroshima station, so we went straight to our hostel. We dropped off our luggage in our room in the hostel and headed out after a shower.


Hiroshima at around 6.30am

I didn't know what to expect when arriving to Hiroshima. To be honest, I was expecting a really small and simple city. Even though the war was many decades ago, I didn't really think that Hiroshima would be as busy as I saw it. When we first went past the city area, I was so suprised that it looks so modern. The city was also quite busy so my image of Hiroshima was completely off.

Anyway, we stayed at K’s hostel in Hiroshima and I really recommend that place. The showers were the best ones I’ve used and the place is really clean and nice. The kitchen was really nice also. The price isn’t too bad either if you’re staying in a group, I really recommend this place if you’re going to Hiroshima.


Russell playing the guitar in the lounge room at K's hostel.

After everyone had showered we headed out to Hiroshima station, they had lots of food stands selling food, but I didn’t buy anything since it was quite pricey. The guys had to go buy their shinkansen tickets so we just waited around the JR station. When everyone was done with everything, we bought a one day travel pass in Hiroshima which let us use the ferry/trams. We were planning on going to Miyajima so it was worth getting one.





The one day trip card

The trams in Hiroshima are different to trains/subways in Tokyo and Osaka. The stops I find are really close together, pretty much walking distance and they’re really slow since they run on the road. It took us about 1.5 hours to get to the Hiroshima port to get a ferry to go to Miyajima. When we got there we were really hungry so decided to go eat…


A tram in Hiroshima, if you are planning on only travelling about 1-3 stops, don't bother taking this and just walk it, you'll probably get there faster that way.

WARNING: If you are going to Miyajima, make sure you eat first or pack your own food. It is NOT worth eating at the port of Hiroshima. You either have to choose between a small café that sells food for a cheap price but everything is TINY or you can go across the road and buy an expensive meal.

Since we fell into the tourist trap we had to eat something so decided to eat at the cheaper place. I had a teriyaki bun which was nice, but really small.






I had a Terayaki hotdog, it was nice but was expensive…

After lunch we headed down to the port to catch a ferry over to the Miyajima island. You can use the one day pass on here as well.



Inside the ferry







It was about a 10-15 minute ride.

We arrived at the Miyajima port





This was pretty cool, it’s like a mini model of Miyajima

As you walk out of the station… the first thing you would probably notice is.. DEERS! They’re EVERYWHERE!


(I was too scared to get closer haha)



A baby deer… SO CUTE!

We decided to walk around for a bit, the place is quiet and has a really olden Japanese traditional feel to it. When you walk around the markets, you will see many stores selling omiyage (souveniers) and you will see lots of stores selling different types of food!





I decided to try this small cake with cream cheese inside, it was so good!



Got it for around 90 yen, we walked down a bit further and saw someone else selling the same thing for 70 yen -__- haha. It was still good! I wish I could’ve bought these back to Australia but they wouldn’t be able to get past customs anyway T_T








We got out of the market area and started heading towards the area with the temples. This is also where the famous Itsukushima Shinto Shrine gate is (The red gate that stands in the middle of the sea).

So we started walking through this area (the first few photos isn’t the famous gate, they’re further down). The deers wouldn’t leave Russell alone because he still had a shell from one of the foods he had bought earlier. He ended up giving up and giving the deers the shell haha.








And here I am at the famous gate! I was kind of disappointed, I would’ve loved to see it when the tide is high, but it was a low tide that day. It still did look nice and you’re able to walk near it.




We decided to keep walking along near the temples. We decided to come back to the famous gate around sunset to get some better photos of it later.


Me with some more deers!









There wasn’t much to do and you had to pay to enter a temple (we didn’t really want to since there wasn’t too much to see since we went to Kyoto temples already). We just decided to sit down near the Itsukushima Shinto Shrine gate and wait for sunset. This was probably around 3pm so we had to sit there for around 2-3 hours. I got a bit bored so I started camwhoring (as usual haha)









The tide got even lower so people could walk right under the gate






Really wish the tide was higher… would’ve looked a lot better in the photos I think.

Oh yeah, guess what happened. While we were just sitting around, a deer stole the map I had in my bag and ate it :( I have a video of it! Haha, I’ll post it up when I get around to editing it.

Anyway, we decided to head back since it was already dark. We had to go back to the hostel first because we needed another map since the deer ate the only one I had with me.. We decided to go out and eat some Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki! Its really different from the other okonomiyaki, it has noodles on the bottom and is more thick.

HiHiroshima at night




Was such a long day, but it was great to visit Miyajima, I really enjoyed it. Hiroshima was more warmer than Osaka so it was nice to be in a bit more warmer weather for a change. It's such a nice and peaceful place with lots of beautiful scenery. Definitely worth the visit!

Stay tuned for the next few posts! Follow my blog for more updates~! Next post will be about my visit to the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb dome.