When we left off last, we had just wrapped up our afternoon in Hiroshima and were hopping on a train to get to Miyajima.



Miyajima is an island about 30 minutes away from Hiroshima. It's most well known for its famous Floating Torii, but there's some good hiking on the island as well.

In all of my research for this trip, everyone said Miyajima is slammed during the day with tourists, but in the evening when they all leave the island is so much better.



Knowing that, I decided to book us a night staying on Miyajima so we could experience the island when it wasn't so crowded.

This was 100% the right move.

We stayed at a ryokan, which is a traditional Japanese inn. This was probably our biggest splurge of the entire trip because I picked one that included a traditional Japanese dinner and had a private hot spring.



When we checked in, we reserved a time for dinner and a time for the private hot springs.

Since we had some time before our dinner reservation, we walked down to see the Floating Torii at dusk. The tide was going out, so we could stand pretty close to it.



The views with the sun setting were just breath-taking.



Back at the ryokan, dinner was massive. I felt rude that there was so much food I couldn't finish, but there was just so much of it. We had some amazing sushi and oysters. Miyajima is known for its very fresh oysters, and my gosh they were delicious.

As we waited for our hot springs time slot, we noticed the tide had completely receded and a handful of people were walking under the Floating Torii. We decided to go do the same.



The water line is taller than me. It's amazing how much the tide goes in and out around the torii.



Ending the day with the hot springs could not have been more perfect. After a week of busy travel and sight-seeing it was so nice to just relax and unwind for a little bit.

I think my best night of sleep of the entire trip was that night in the ryokan.

The next morning when we woke up, the tide had come all the way in and the torii gate looked like it was floating on the water.



After breakfast, we planned to hike Mt. Misen. The summit of the mountain was 538 meters up and boasted an observatory that offered 360 degree views of the surrounding area.

The hike started out really well. The scenery was stunning, and the morning was crisp and sunny.





However, somewhere between a quarter and a half of the way up we started seeing signs warning us of poisonous snakes that lived on the mountain.



This was the first sign we saw, and while I didn't love the idea that we might run into a snake, I figured it was something like a copperhead. You know, the kind of snake that often will dry bite first and even if you get an actual bite, their venom usually isn't fatal.

But a little bit further up the mountain we saw a new sign that basically screamed WARNING JAPANESE VIPERS followed by all the steps to take if you see one and get bitten (basically call 119 immediately because you're probably going to die).

I freaked out the entire rest of the hike. As some people know, we don't have a history of good luck on hikes, so I figured for sure we were going to run into a freaking massive viper and one of us would get bitten leaving the other one to dial 119 and try to convey what happened to a person who doesn't speak English.

Basically in my mind, someone was definitely going to die on the hike.



Obviously that did not happen, but any time the trail narrowed or we got close to some dark clumps of trees or rocks, I would panic. This definitely made the hike super pleasant for both of us.

Despite all that, we did eventually make it to the top of the mountain, and the views made all my spazzing out totally worth it.





We stayed at the top for a while just kind of taking it all in.





On the way back down, I panicked so much less about the snakes. In part because we'd made it up without a problem and in part because the trail was way more crowded with people. On the way up, it had just been us and nature. On the way down the trail was crowded with people and kids and dogs. I figured any snakes had slithered back into their viper dens.

Apparently I was so relaxed I forgot to watch my footing because toward the end of the hike I stepped down on to a twisted root, lost my balance and ate it. I was fine. I cut my knee, had a bruise, a tweaked my ankle a bit, but I could walk just fine and didn't have any serious damage.  But alas, so continues our streak of mishaps while on hikes.

Honestly, despite the fact that I was kind of panicking the entire hike, the hike was my favorite part of the trip I think. It was gorgeous and just so different than anything else we did the entire time we were there.

Scott and Christine came to meet us on the island in the afternoon. We met them near the ferry terminal, where we made friends with more deer. Like Nara, Miyajima is full of overly friendly deer. These ones were a bit more aggressive though. We saw them yank food or maps out people's hands.





We strolled through town and picked up some yummy street food, and then stopped by the Miyajima Brewery for a beer tasting. (Well, Christine and I drank sangria while the boys drank beer).



Not long after that, we had to gather our bags and head back to the ferry terminal so we could catch our many trains back to Tokyo. We stopped for one last picture in front of the torii gate since the tide had come in and it looked like it was floating again, and then we said goodbye to Miyajima.







Fitbit stats:
24,041 steps
10.19 miles

We left Kyoto early in the morning on Saturday to meet our friends for a weekend in Hiroshima.



We stopped at Starbucks for a quick pick-me-up before heading to the Peace Memorial Park, for what we knew would be a tough, emotional day.

I treated myself to a cherry blossom latte. It's basically Japan's version of the PSL.



Describing our visit to the Peace Memorial Park is hard. I keep finding myself saying it was "cool" or "really interesting" or a variety of other words with rather positive connotations. But it seems wrong to describe the site of the first nuclear bombing in that way.

The museum in the park was tragic, especially the exhibit full of students' burned up clothes or women's dresses stained from the black rain. There was an old watched that's still frozen at the exact time the bomb exploded.

And in a small box were some of the thousands of paper cranes Sadako folded while she was hospitalized years later with leukemia as a result of the radiation from the bomb.



Downstairs in a special exhibit were the paper cranes President Obama folded on his visit.



We spent a couple of heavy hours in the museum before we wandered through the rest of the park, which is full of memorials.

We saw the Flame of Peace, which residents of the city tell you will be extinguished when nuclear weapons are abolished from the world.





We stopped at the children's memorial, which features a statue of Sadako and a paper crane. The memorial is also lined with clear glass boxes full of folded cranes left by visitors.





We stopped at some of the other memorials, and I ran the Peace Bell before we crossed the bridge for a closer look at the A-Bomb Dome.





This building is now famous because a large chunk of its dome is still in tact after the explosion. The city has decided to preserve it so people can see the bomb's destruction.



After starting the day with such heavy stuff, we decided to wrap it up eating some delicious Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is basically a Japanese-style pancake with all sorts of delicious stuff mixed in.



I had them the last time I was in Tokyo, but the Hiroshima style is different because it mixes noodles in, and really if you add noodles to anything it makes it amazing.

We ordered four different varieties and shared them around the table. They.were.so.good. Truly one of the best meals I had while in Japan.

After we finished up with our late lunch, we hopped a train to take us to a ferry port to go to the island of Miyajima. I'll save our adventures there for another post, since it was probably my favorite part of the trip, and I've got a lot to say about it!

Fitbit stats:
22,250 steps
9.47 miles

We spent our last day in Kyoto exploring the Higashiyama District in the eastern part of the city. Higashiyama is definitely where you get the feel that you are in "old Kyoto." There are narrow streets lined with old traditional shops and tons of temples and shrines.

We started our morning at Kiyomizudera Temple. In comparison to the other temples we visited, this one seemed massive. Its grounds were huge, and we spent a while exploring.



We visited the pagoda and drank from the streams of running water that are supposed to bring you good luck.





We walked through some of the merchant shops and I bought a little charm that I plan to use as an ornament for my Christmas tree.



We also visited the Jishu shrine, which is dedicated to a god of love and match making. At this shrine there are two stones set a decent distant apart. Legend has it if you can walk from one to the other with your eyes closed you will have good luck in love. We didn't do this, but we watched a bunch of other people try, and I'm not sure how anyone is successful given that the shrine is so packed with people. There's no clear path without running in to others.



But by far the coolest thing we did at this shrine was visit Zuigudo Hall, which is dedicated to Buddha's mother. At this shrine, you take off your shoes, and then walk down into a pitch black basement, which is supposed to represent a mother's womb.

When I say it was pitch black, I mean I literally couldn't see my hand in front of my face. It was a little freaky, but there was a rope that you held with your left hand that guided your way, and then when you were smack in the center there was this illuminated rock that you're supposed to touch and make a wish before emerging back into the daylight.

I've never experienced that level of complete and utter darkness in my life.

Once we finished at Kiyomizudera, we spent some time wandering around the famous streets and back alleys that make up the Higashiyama district.





We strolled up through a park and stopped off at a couple of temples as we walked.



We eventually found our way to the Philosopher's Path, a stone-lined path along the canal in the northern part of the Higahiyama district. The path is isn't super long, but it makes for a nice walk. It's of course lined with temples, but we only stopped at one at the southern most end (by this point in the trip we were slightly burning out on temples).

We walked the entire length of the path up to Ginkakuji, often known as the Silver Pavilion. This pavilion was modeled after the Gold Pavilion we'd seen the day before. But unlike the Gold Pavilion, it was never painted silver. Also unlike the Gold Pavilion, the grounds at the Silver Pavilion have way more to offer.



There's the pavilion itself as well as some stunning gardens -- there's a sand garden, a moss garden and plenty of ponds, streams and waterfalls.





If you were to only have time to do one of the pavilions on your trip, I'd pick this one.

After catching a bus back into the main part of the city, we strolled through Nishiki Market, making a random lunch from food we found at street vendors.

We wrapped up our last day in Kyoto by grabbing dinner in Gion, one of the famous geisha districts and strolling along Pontocho Alley.

FitBit stats:
32,429 steps
13.8 miles

We only had one day of rain on our entire trip, but unfortunately it fell during one of our days in Kyoto. In comparison to Tokyo, Kyoto is a very sleepy city. It's also very spread out and almost everything to do is outside.

We tried to shuffle our plans a bit to hit the things that were quasi-inside or required public transportation rather than walking to reach.

But the rain still definitely made the day not super pleasant. Even with umbrellas and raincoats, our socks and shoes got soggy fast.

We started the morning out in Arashiyama, the western part of the city, at the Iwatayama Monkey Park.



Mt. Arashiyama is home to hundreds of monkeys and visitors can hike up the mountain to hang out with them and feed them. Fair warning to others who want to do this, the hike up the mountain is definitely steep at parts and it's a good 15-20 minute walk. Other than being a little slippery because of the rain, it was fine for us, but for folks with kids, you may need to set aside a bit of extra time to actually make it to the monkeys.

It wasn't super packed when we were there, which was kind of nice, because it meant there were plenty of monkeys for us to feed and we weren't waiting in line behind a bunch of other people.



In order for humans to feed the monkeys, the humans have to go into this caged in room. Yes you read that right. The monkeys get to stay out in the wild and the humans go into a cage and hand out the food from there.



It's pretty funny, and when we were there, we were cracking up at the personalities of some of the monkeys.

This one for example was a fat and greedy. He kept stealing food out of the hands of the baby monkeys and then would eat his food with one hand, while shoving the other hand through the fence to demand more food from you.





His constant expression was basically, "Hellllllo, I'm waiting."

Some of the babies were cute and eager to try to take the food out of your hand before a bigger monkey came along.





And we got to witness a bit of a monkey fight at the end when two monkeys were going for the same piece of food. Shrieking and other hysterics ensued.

When our little bags of food ran out, we stuck around for a bit hanging out with the monkeys outside and enjoying some of the views of Kyoto from the mountain.



For the moment the rain had stopped, and I was hopeful that maybe we'd get lucky the rest of the day.

We set off from the mountain to go visit the Bamboo Forest. It was only a short walk from the monkey park, but by the time we got there the rain had really picked up again, so we didn't spend very long wandering through it.


And apparently I only took this one crappy picture.

We made our way back to the train station in hopes that the rain would let up before our next stop.

After a train and bus ride later, we arrived at Kinkakuji, sometimes better known as the Golden Pavilion. This temple was the retirement villa of a shogun and is obviously a little ostentatious and over the top.



It was sort of cool to see the pavilion up close, but overall we were disappointed in this stop. The Golden Pavilion gets a ton of hype as one of the top tourists attractions and a must-see in Kyoto. But you can't go in the pavilion. So you get to see it from across the pond and then walk through the gardens and then you're done.



Maybe we were just cranky and maybe the weather was impacting our opinion of it, but for as out of the way as Kinkakuji is we definitely didn't think it was worth it.

Another bus and train ride later, we made our way to Nijo Castle. We'd had this tentatively penciled in and figured if we weren't super tired or sick of the rain, we'd do it.

This was one of those things I'm glad we did. This old castle is really cool to walk through. It was the home and office of the first shogun. So we got to walk through and see rooms where the shogun would have held meetings and where he would have slept and ate. The floorboards were made to creak when you walk over them as early warning signs of traitors entering the building.



There are also some pretty gardens that are part of the castle grounds, but since there wasn't much in bloom, we didn't spend too much time exploring those.



Our last adventure of the day was checking out some Japanese onsen. Bathing in hot springs is a huge part of Japanese culture and it's not something I got to experience the last time I was there. I'll be honest, I was a little skittish at first, since you are basically hanging out in a hot tub naked with a bunch of strangers. Don't worry, onsen are pretty much all single-sex, but it's still admittedly a bit weird at first.

But after a while, you kind of forget that everyone is naked and it's just a super relaxing thing to do. The place we were staying had an open air onsen that was lined with stones and full of piping hot water. At the time I went, there wasn't anyone else using it, so I got to basically just chill in the most relaxing hot tub while rain sprinkled down from outside. (It was on the roof, there were super high walls, no one could see in). It was probably the most relaxed and zen I was on the entire trip.

We did OK trying to make the best of the day in the rain, but it was definitely a struggle figuring out what to do to avoid getting drenched.

Fitbit stats:
26,037 steps
11.05 miles