Japan Email #8 - Miyajima 2 - the long trek
Dear friends and family,
More Miyajima; it was a very full day.
Era in purple. Don finds it difficult to pick me out of crowds here. I may possibly be the only woman in Japan wearing Dansko clogs. These women are worshipping at statues of Jizo, the Buddha who protects and guides the spirits of babies and young children who have died.
Easier to pick Don out of a crowd. Walking to the overhead lifts which will take us to the top of Mt. Mizen
The cable and small overhead trams can be seen in the upper right. We had to take a series of 2 of these to get up the mountain.
This is not our photo, but something from a tourist agency. It's the only one so far in these Japanese emails which isn't from our camera and iPhones. The color is certainly beefed up. I have no idea how they managed to take it. It gives you a sense of how high up the trams are.
At the top, incredible views of the Seto Inland Sea.
Don captured on his iPhone map the location of where we are, at the top of Mt. Mizen.
Magnificent scenery, isolated, and very, very steep. By the time we got to the bottom, 1.9 miles of downhill (actually before) we had muscle failure and barely had control of our legs. I only fell once. Freaked Don out, but I was okay.
Cute trail markers; there are a variety of them.
Temple about halfway down the mountain. Looking carefully through the doorway, you may spy some young hikers going up the mountain, some of the very few people we encountered. We felt as if we were in medieval Japan.
Little shrine to Jizo
Imagine laying all these stone stairs. This is one of three paths down the mountain. We also saw signage to different parks.
We came to an area where there had been a rock slide
A little temple and we are almost at the end. We can see buildings in sight. We should probably give thanks for not breaking a leg. We were also worried about getting to the bottom before the sun set. I think a reasonably-fit person need not fear that they would break their leg on this path, but it is a workout (for the average American, anyway).
We came down the back side of Daisho-in. We were looking for this trail up the mountain earlier. I'm glad we didn't find it. I don't think we would have made it; certainly not up and back.
Staggered past here, the land is flattening out, and through the little village.
The tide is starting to come in again.
A jolly fellow saw us struggling to take a selfie with the Torii in the background and took this photo of us.
Love from Japan,
Era and Don
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Japan November 2014
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