大鳥居 ＆ 厳島神社 (Ootorii & Itsukushima Jinja)

AUGUST 15, 2007 (Part 1)

The plan for today is to spend the whole day in 宮島 (Miyajima). Before going to this island, which required a ferry ride from the jetty in Hiroshima, we had our lunch first.

Again, we had ramen.

Next, we took the streetcar from the city centre to the jetty which took us about 1 hour. We used a 1 day trip card, costing 850yen. With that, it can be used for the streetcar and Miyajima Matsudai Ferry.

The ferry we took was from Miyajima-guchi and it was about a 10 minute ride to the island.

It was a sunny day with the wind blowing away while we were so busy camwhoring on the ferry.

I know I looked so sleepy. In fact, we woke up around 10 plus that day. The number of people there was not bad. But not as much as the previous night during the fireworks, of course.

In case you were wondering what's so special about Miyajima, then let me give you a brief introduction. Miyajima, an island of the Gods, I heard that Nara has a lot of deers. But I'm not sure if they are as many as what you can see in Miyajima. The deers are just everywhere.

Sleepy deer.

Shy deer.

And some even posed for me while making some sexy pose.

I couldn't help myself from getting horny when these deers were giving me such reception.

When you camwhored and got horny with deers, of all other living beings on the earth, that must be some sad case, no? I was trying to make them look more kakkoi.

So, I tried my sunglass on one of the deer.

Kakkoi, right? But that deer on the top of the picture looked jealous already. I was starting to get tired after playing around with these deers. So I decided to take a rest on a natural bench.

But in the end, I made them produce these hot and fresh black stuff which looked like choc chips.

Here's a video of the deers there. I tried feeding them something.

"Makan, makan, makan. Don't want to makan la".

It was some dried grass I picked up from the ground. But it didn't take my offer. In fact, the deers here are a bit weird. They don't eat normal stuff deers eat. Instead, you will find them going after papers and straws from the rubbish bin.

We later took a walk around the streets on our way to Ootorii and Itsukushima Jinja. The stuff sold there among others was a huge spoon.

Well, that was actually not for sale and it wasn't a spoon although it looked like one. It was an oar.

We know it's almost impossible to find pirated stuff in Japan. But I managed to come across something which had the same standard as those stuff you can get in Petaling Street.

Perhaps the next product will be 内規 (naiki) or internal rules. No more Nike anymore from now on.

After coming across so many stalls selling yakikaki the previous day, again I saw another stall selling the same stuff. They even had oyster which was still alive next to the stall.

I guess I will never come to an end if I were to explain every stuff available there. Here's a video on our walk along the street. Just bear with our rojak-ed language in the video.

The tour guide was explaining that they already 'matikan' the deers sold there. Not a bad tour guide at all.

Like a poser, right? Finally, we got to the first place we were going to.

大鳥居 or Ootorii Gate.

Camwhore in front of the Big Bird.

Why Big Bird? This is not the Sesame Street in Universal Studio Japan. But I call it Big Bird because if you translate the kanji, it means a big bird.

We walked a little bit more and reached 厳島神社 (Itsukushima Jinja).

The front view of the shrine looks something like this.

Itsukushima Jinja is actually just next to the Ootorii Gate. From inside the shrine, you can have a magnificent view of the Ootorii Gate as well.

If you might notice, there was a pagoda in the background of the picture above. It wasn't next to the shrine. But we did went to have a look at it later on.

It was a 5-storey pagoda.

We went into the shrine and the first thing we spotted was this white bulu-bulu long long thing.

Looks like an origami to me, although I know it wasn't that. Not enough with what I did in Kiyomizu-Dera before this, I repeated some same stuff with Kok Hong.

It seemed that I will never ever learn my lesson when visiting shrines, right? But this time I have at least toned down my nonsense act.

Some of the sections in the shrine had nice angle. Take this for example.

It actually took me a long time waiting until there was nobody walking pass there to get that shot. But it was worth the wait.

This time, it's me along the pathway.

It was meant to be the perfect shot, but one family came and ruined the picture. Sigh. So I took another shot.

Yes, I know. You can call me a camwhore freak. Enough of my camwhoring activity. Lets see what you can find inside the shrine.

Well, you will see shrine inside a shrine. Like this.

What else? Yes, walls.

And more of wooden walls.

But at least you can see some ceiling on top of it. Okay, those things looked kinda boring. Let me change into something different.

I don't think poles will make any difference, right? But I'm almost running out of pictures. I guess this would be a little bit better.

There was a row of sake there but I wasn't sure if they were all filled with sake.

While walking inside the shrine, I noticed there was one part of the shrine which looked like it had been burned down. Actually, it was still under renovation and yet to be painted.

Before we got out from the shrine, let me have one last picture inside it.

After we went out from Itsukushima Jinja, I saw a creature with a red ass.

A baboon resting under a tree. But this time it wasn't naked. Couldn't see its red ass. Maybe it was worried in case people like me went and molest it.

As I have mentioned earlier, the deers here are over-populated. Perhaps I should suggest them to do some family planning for these deers. Even around the shrine, deers were everywhere.

Seeing that deer so cute, I offered her some drink. My C.C. Lemon water.

But in the end, she rejected and ignored me. To make matters worse, I made her husband beh song with me.

Fearing the worst, I quickly ran away from there.

~ End of Part 1 ~

宮島水中花火大会 (Miyajima-On-The-Sea Fireworks)

AUGUST 14, 2007

I was trying to catch the early train to Hiroshima in the morning. So, I woke up early, had my bath and headed straight to the eki to start my journey there.

That wasn't my writing. It was written by one one the people from the eki. I didn't manage to catch the earliest train as I woke up a little bit late and I got to take the next train which I will only be reaching there by 2pm.

Kok Hong messed up himself on his way to Hiroshima as well with his overnight-in-eki experience. The first thing I thought when I reached Hiroshima Eki was to look around for him. Even before I took out my phone, he suddenly appeared out of no where.

We then went to the McDonalds to have our lunch and put my stuff in the locker before heading straight to 宮島 (Miyajima).

I will be explaining more on this island in my next entry but the reason we went there on that day was to watch the fireworks later that night.

Before I go any further, in case you are wondering who Kok Hong is, he is a guy who pried on me at KS, sesat-ed in my blog and in the end, we knew each other.

I know he looks attractive (that's what he claimed all the time) and seems like a good boy. But actually, clear water don't sangka no buaya. A lot species of devil inside him. His T-shirt is the clearest evidence.

Back to reality, we took a ferry to Miyajima and walked around the area where a lot of stalls were set up. Ame ringo, okonomiyaki, yakisoba, yakiika, takoyaki. What yaki also got.

But the thing that I noticed the most must be yakikaki.

And yakikaki.

And another yakikai again.

They can't seem to get enough of yakikaki, no? Yakikaki is actually roast or drill oyster. There weren't just food as there were lots of other souvenirs sold there as well.

One of the most common must be this spoon-like thing.

I guess those are oars (pendayung).

We later walked around the famous red gate called 大鳥居 (Otorii). Although we will be returning to this island again tomorrow, I just couldn't resist myself from taking a shot at that red gate.

Even after walking again through the streets to kill some time, we realized that there is still 3 hours to go. If we don't find a nice place to watch the fireworks tonight, that area will be full. So, we picked a spot and sat there, under the hot sun waiting for 8pm to approach.

The wait was so long and to make matter worse, we sat on some hot concrete staircase by the sea.

We called that the Hot Batu Experience.

There was even a little boy who kept on disturbing us. He only disturbed me with his fan at first. But later on, Kok Hong became his victim as well. Here is the kid trying his fishing skill with the hope of catching a dolphin.

We waited there from the time the sun was shining brightly, until it set.

Pretty nice scene it was. Here's another one.

The fireworks are quite different from what I saw back in Nagaoka earlier this month. They are launched on the water. The fireworks display was to honour the 20 years of progress since 廿日市 (Hatsukaichi) was given city status.

Miyajima-on-the-Sea Fireworks Display is one of the most famous in Japan. Finally the time arrived, and the fireworks started.

Watching fireworks launched from the sea must be something different.

This is actually my first time (at least as all the pictures before this was blurred and not worth uploading them) camwhoring with fireworks as the background. Even during the Nagaoka Fireworks Festival (Day 1 and Day 2), I didn't camwhore in front of the fireworks.

And some videos to have a better view on these fireworks.

Smiley and red heart.

Shooting stars.

Some heart formation in the middle part of the video.

This is one of my favourite. The fireworks looked like comets and small cute UFOs being launched. But the funny part is that they looked like some failed mission. Lauched, then fell. Then try to fly again, but fell again.

Snowing.

It was nearing the end of the fireworks display. When it is the ending part, usually it will be the best from the rest. This must be the best video of the night.

The finale.

After the fireworks ended, the crowd going back was so huge with only 4 ferries available on that night. The people there easily were more than 100,000.

That was just inside the ferry. You wouldn't imagine how many there were outside still waiting to get onto the ferry. Kok Hong mentioned that the scene was almost like in the movie Sinking of Japan where everyone was trying to get back to Honshu as fast as possible. But all followed the instructions gives and no pushing and shoving or pickpocket case.

Both of us joined the fun as well. To keep us occupied, we camwhored even though we were stucked in a sea of people.

After going through the huge crowd in the ferry and train as well, we walked back to our hotel and spend our first night together.

First night together. Sounds familiar, eh?

P/S: Credits to Kok Hong for all the fireworks pictures. As for the videos, those were taken by me ^.^