Big Japan Trip Take 2: Iconic places

Whoops #2

We overslept. I mean, I set an alarm for 7, so we would be up for breakfast at 8 (Hubbo chose that time instead of 8.30). I snoozed the alarm, because I was up at 3am with itchy bites on my leg, then I needed the loo and I had to use my phone as a torch and then I saw an email from our wedding photographers with a link for the photos for us to check through and ok before making it live to our guests... it was all difficult to sleep on!  Hubbo, it transpired, changed the alarm again so it would go off at 7.30 but in doing so he flipping disabled the alarm. He also let me apologise profusely multiple times for messing up when I jerked awake at 8.45. He did not let on what he had done until he had had some drinks at a food bar in Hiroshima some 12 hours later...!

We packed, checked out and left our luggage at the hotel so that we could visit places in the daylight - the tide was out, so it was interesting to see the gate up close and to go into the temple. 

The temple is still in use and it was interesting to see many Japanese tourists, which is apparently an atheist nation, continue to follow customs and traditions and to pray and seek blessing in the old ways. Hubbo pointed this out and I told him I considered it Spiritual Atheism, if such a thing exists.

We walked on the beach and saw a variety of crabs. We saw other shrines and walked through many shops - it was fun to see Japanese tourist shops for Japanese tourists! There were many taking rickshaw rides - I felt sorry for the rickshaw pullers, it was 38 degrees and pure sunlight.

We hid from the midday heat in the aquarium, known for having fish that are special to the inland sea area. It was small and fairly typical but it was nice all the same and we saw some things we hadn't seen at other aquariums, too.

Then we made our way back to the hotel, got the shuttle bus to the ferry and squeezed onto a train to Hiroshima. I mean, squeezed. It was 9 stops and until stop 7, more and more people were forcing their way on. It wasn't until stop 7 that we realised that it was because there was a baseball game on and we knew from 2016 that there is a baseball arena by our hostel in Hiroshima, so at least we knew we'd be able to get off at our stop. I'm fairly sure that a lot of people waited until Hiroshima to get off in order to get on a returning train and go back to the stop they didn't get off on. The train is every 30 minutes, so it'd be quicker than waiting for the next one in the correct direction.

We didn't do much in Hiroshima - we went out for food, played some arcade games and then went back to the hostel to sleep.  The next morning, we headed to Kyoto, where we hoped we wouldn't be rained out again!

Here are the photos of the sites in Miyajima during low-tide and extreme heat! (There are a lot because I couldn't choose which to cull. I'm sorry!)