Raw Sardines and Football

One of the unique features of the Ryokan's that I forgot to mention yesterday is the Onsen's, or public baths. They are separated into men's and women's and are very spa like. The kids loved them.

These pics are from the Onsen at Iwaso Ryokan

On Friday night we stayed at the Miyajima Grand Hotel Arimoto in a traditional Japanese style room. The Arimoto was not as traditional as Iwaso, so we felt a bit more relaxed there.

The kids and our hostess Zhingpang

Our room

The kids dressed up and ready for dinner

The Arimoto Dinner

I have never, in all of my years of eating out seen as much food for a table of four people. On top of the dishes you see below, we had two pots of broth that we cooked two kinds of fish and veggies in, a beef dish that was similar to a hot rock fondue, tempura shrimp, two rectangular platters with massive raw oysters, rice and dessert. It was crazy, there was no way that we could have come close to eating all of the food.

Appetizer plates

A beautiful shrimp dish

Who is this guy???? Since when does our son eat RAW Sardines covered with fresh grated wasabi????

This sashimi platter was insane. We ate a lot of it and we didn't even make a dent! I didn't capture it in the photo, but they had skinned one of the fish and used it as decoration on the platter. The dish was visually stunning.

We had two of these mussel hot pots....

We were much more adventurous at this meal then we were at the meal the previous night at Iwaso Ryokan. We tried just about everything, some of it was great and some of it was, well, disgusting. All in all, we are really glad we got to experience the traditions of the Ryokans the artful Japanese cuisine.

Saturday April 10th

Today was spent traveling from Miyajima to Tokyo. The total journey including the ferry, a commuter train, subway and the shinkansen took about 6hrs. We only had about 45 minutes to relax in the hotel before we headed out, grabbed a bite to eat and made our way to the FC Tokyo football match.

This is a take off of the the very famous "This is Anfield" sign that hangs in the hallway leading out to the pitch at Liverpool's home stadium.

Pitch before the teams came out

The starting lineups

Great save by the Tokyo keeper off of a free kick

The FC Tokyo supporters. At the start of the game they sang the song made famous by the Liverpool FC supporters, "You'll Never Walk Alone".

The Kashima Antlers supporters

Two happy FC Tokyo supporters

It was a long travel day to get there, but it was a great night out. The atmosphere at the game was fantastic. Both sets of supporters sang throughout the entire game. The quality of football wasn't the greatest, but it was a thoroughly entertaining evening.

Here Monkey, Monkey, Monkey...

The Ryokan that we stayed at last night was very traditional, and last nights meal was a challenge for all of us. Having been sick earlier the same day, I can tell you that experimenting with Japanese cuisine was not high on my wish list. There was a lot of really strange looking and strange tasting food on the table. Even with all of the strange stuff in front of us, I thought we had a great attitude about it and we tried what we were comfortable with. When we got back to the room Fintan had three peanut granola bars before going to bed….

Our decision to have the “western style” breakfast the next morning was not a difficult one to make.

After breakfast we made the short walk up to the start of the cable car ropeway that takes you up to Shishiiwa observatory.

Waterfall outside our bedroom window

It was raining by the time we got to the cable car, but we didn’t care. All we cared about was seeing the wild Miyajima Snow Monkeys that hang out at the Mt. Misen observatory.

To get to Mt. Misen, the highest point on Miyajima, you have to hike about 30 minutes from the Shishiiwa station.

View from the cable car on way up to Shishiiwa station

View from Shishiiwa Station

You have been warned!

Sign just outside the door at Shishiiwa station

We checked out the cloudy view from Shishiiwa’s lookout points, then made our way up the path to Mt. Misen. About 20 minutes into the hike we arrived at some temples that are realated to Kobo Daishi, a great Buddhist priest.

At the top of Mt. Misen it was clear enough to see that the views would be stunning, if it wasn’t so hazy…. And it was certainly clear enough to see that there were no monkeys. We decided to step into the only building at the top, a small shack that had a hand written sign that said in english, “here is a restaurant”. With time to kill, we decided to wait for a little while to see if the monkeys would show.

You can see the Shishiiwa station from the Mt. Misen Observatory

"Here is a restaurant"

We polished off our drinks and figured we could kill a few more minutes if the kids had ice cream. After I bought the ice cream I took my map to the vendor and pointed to where we were and asked him if the monkeys will be here today. He looked at me, laughed, then pointed at the map to Shishiiwa station and said, “monkeys Shishiiwa”. Nooooooooo!

And so began the rainy trek back to Shishiiwa station. About 5 minutes into our walk Bronwyn slipped on the wet pathway and landed with a good thump on her tailbone. She was in pain but she toughed it out and did great to make it the rest of the way down.

When we arrived back at Shishiiwa Fintan and I raced up to the observatory to find the monkeys. Nothing……. We walked back to the observatory café and ordered some tea to kill time. Maybe they were just running late today….. We checked a couple of more times then came to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to happen today. Reluctantly we headed down the stairs to catch the ropeway down, all the time checking in the trees for a glimpse of anything that resembled a monkey.

On monkey watch at Shishiiwa station

At the bottom we walked back to the Iwaso Ryokan where we had left our luggage. We loaded up on the shuttle bus. On board the shuttle I asked the driver where the Grand Miyajima Resort was. He asked if we were staying there tonight, I said yes. He started the van, drove for about 32 seconds, pulled over, turned off the engine and pointed up some stairs. “here Grand Miyajima Resort”…. Woops.

The rest of the afternoon we spent wandering around the small village, the Itsukushima Shrine and its famous O-Torri Gate which is over 16 meters tall and weighs around 60 tons.

The O-Torri gate is one of the most photographed spots in Japan.

This is a coffee shop with attitude. I like it.

The next blog will have details of our Friday night Japanese feast and the FC Tokyo match.