I was really excited to experience the Sakura season that I decided to get the most out of it. Afer doing a fun hanami in Ryouzan Park, I went to Miyajima island in Chugoku Prefecture. This is very exciting because first, the island has the top scenic view in Japan . second, I get to see the beautiful island on its prettiest face. Third, I would meet my friend Aya who will join the trip (as the main tour guide,of course).
My mini research on the trip has shown that the best way to go is using the JR trains with the Jyuhachikippu tickets. The rough calculation will be,
Shinkansen = ¥6500(RM 250)/one way & 3hrs trip
Normal train = ¥2590(RM 90)/one way & 3.5hrs trip
Normal train with jyuhachikippu =¥2370(RM80) all covered, including JR ferry tickets.
I didn’t want to waste the day only for the train rides, so I kinda push my friends (Sokrith, Syukri, Zarina) to leave early. We took the super early train from Higashishinkawa station at 5.35am. Here is our route,
Higashishinkawa – Shin Yamaguchi (Sanyo Line)
Shin yamaguchi – Iwakuni (Sanyo Line)
Iwakuni – Miyajimaguchi (Hiroshima Line)
We reached Miyajimaguchi at 9am,as expected. Our first plan was to have a meal in the Ueno Anago Meshi (recommended by dear Sensei). I knew it opens at 10am, yet I still insisted to come early since I heard that there’s always a long waiting line to enter the restaurant. So we killed the time by having a little breakfast in Seven Eleven and took some pictures. HOWEVER, as we didn’t properly watch the time, we got back to the restaurant at 10.01 and it was already a long queue! What made things worse was we, (especially me) didn’t know where to get the queue number so we just looked around while people were coming in.
Finally Aya came and she took a reservation for us. It was only 10.08am but there were more than 10 people lining before us (I counted) and we had to wait 45 minutes to get in the restaurant!!
We got the table at 10.50am, and we ordered five medium grilled anago. This restaurant has been doing business for more than 100 years offering only one menu : grilled anago. The restaurant is very famous for the menu, hence Sensei told us to come first thing in the morning before it sold out.
I don’t know if it was just my hunger ( I was really starving), or the food was indeed delicious! I was the quickest to finish my don and took some of Zarina&Syukri’s anago lol. It costed me ¥2000 (rm 75). that being said it was the most expensive food I’ve ever paid in Japan. Of course it’s a normal price for the locals (maybe for sensei it’s very cheap), but yeah I’m only a student, what do I have? It was worth it, though. It’s not like I eat this everyday, so why bother?
From Miyajimaguchi, we needed to take a ferry to reach the island. We rode JR ferry (jyuhachikippu tickets applied) for 10 minutes. When we have landed, the first thing to do is to walk through The Great Torii.
It is located a bit far from the beach, hence the visitors can only walk through it when it’s low tie. We didn’t get to pass the gate though, but we got in just right in front of it and took some pictures.
After watching the Torii, we went to climb the mount Misen. I totally didn’t expect to climb any hill or mountain whatsoever. I was told by a friend about mountain, yet I just imagined that would not be so high and reachable by cable cars.
The reality is….we have to climb to a hill to take the ropeway (cable car), and after the ropeways we still have to walk to reach the top.
Well, we can actually wait for the shuttle bus to take us uphill. But the next bus was in like 50mnts so we didn’t want to waste our time for that.
It was a two-phase ropeway for approximately 15minutes. The ticket price is ¥1800 (RM70)/return. It took around an hour to reach the top (including photo session and resting up).
We only took 20-30minutes to walk back to the ropeways. I guess we got used to the slope haha. It started to rain at that time,so people were rushing to take the ropeways back.
Our pathways during the climb (including one before ropeways) were surrounded by beautiful scenery. This island is really beautiful, especially the classic style of its streets. Just like other normal tourist attractions, the streets were full of souvenir shops and food stalls. They sell special foods from Hiroshima and Miyajima. The famous ones are of course momiji manju and grilled oysters.
I saw many deers wandering freely around the island. I guess Miyajima is also an island full of deers.
Overall, Miyajima is beautiful and worth to visit! I don’t mind visiting the island again for the second, third, or many many times! Hope I will get my chance for that