Our time in Osaka was done, and although I would have loved another day in Kyoto, or maybe a few more days, the schedule didn't allow and so it was onwards for a 2 day one night stopover (although in the wrong direction for our next destination) in Hiroshima, they had a one night hotel and train deal that Mina found and so we booked that each and off we went! The bullet train was great, shooting along at a couple of hundred kilometers and hour and we were soon in the very new looking city of Hiroshima.
We checked in and dropped off our bags and since we had left early, headed out to explore! The famous shrine we had heard about from Hiatt was near Hiroshima and so the first day we got the train for an hour or so over to the ferry and then took the ferry out to the island where this Shrine was located. It was a beautiful island with tame deer wandering around and lovely trees and scenery and we walked down to the shrine, took some pictures of it at high tide standing 50 meters out into the sea and then walked around the attached temple.
It was relaxing and not too busy that day, and we climbed up the hill behind the temple a bit and explored a few of the smaller temples up there, one especially lovely with hundreds of statues and with some afternoon lighting I got some very nice pictures.
One of the temples was especially beautiful, with rooms of lanterns, wonderfully lit statues and so many other things that made some lovely pictures, and under the temple, and corridor snaking 50m back and forth under the floor of the temple building, intentionally completely unlit and pitch black. Complete and total darkness, then you are left to walk through this maze by touch, until floating in the blackness are a series of small metal engravings of budda (or a similar deity), lit by the tiniest light but you can just make them out in the total darkness. Very cool and a little unsettling, but very beautiful too, and a nice respite from the outside heat!
After exploring and climbing around the temples we headed back to the dock and found that the arch that had been standing in the middle of the bay had been left behind by the tide and was now standing in a quickly drying sandy bay, and people were walking out and around and under the shrine.
We took off our shoes and walked out through the rock pools to the shrine, touching its wooden pillars was very interesting, and after a few more pictures we went back to the ferry port and headed back to the mainland.
It had been a long day and so we were happy to sit down on the train and rest a while, we woke up to see a sign with our station outside the window, we grabbed out things and dived off as the door alarm buzzed and walked back to the hotel.
We checked in and went to our rooms, showered and then got some dinner.
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