5th Week - Sundayv(100208) Visit to Miyajima Oyster Festival!!!!

Today's trip to Miyajima was filled with laughter and funny incidents that I will never forget for quite some time. And this is how the story goes...

Supposed to wake up at 6am but instead overslept and woke up at 6.45am. Started our cycling trip at 8am and it was a 2 hrs 10 minutes cycle to Miyajima. There was nothing much to see along the way cause the shops were still not open yet. But the weather was good with the sunny sun keeping the temperatures warm. Along the 1.5 hours mark, Claire and I were caught by the Traffic Police for dangerously crossing the road with the red man still on! They were broadcasting in a loudspeaker and initially I thought they were some advertisements until I saw the police van driving past us and telling us to stop! We did as instructed and they asked us to give them our foreign ID card. They copied down our particulars with our bike's registration number and told us to cycle safely the next time. Then we requested taking photos with them to comemorate this special incident and they agreed! Hope we don't receive the fines from them! Haha...

Taking a photo with the TP who caught us... :)

With this, we laughed and cycled all the way to Miyajima-guchi. Upon reaching the ferry terminal, I was shocked to see the endless stream of people queueing up for the ferry. I did not expect the oyster festival to attract so many visitors. But I think all of them wanted to have a taste of the oysters and so were we! We bought the tics and it was a 5 to 10 minutes ride, with the whole ferry packed with people that we had to stand and take pictures of the scenery... After reaching, we sat in the station to eat some snacks as our stomachs are growling with the long cycling. Then when we came out of the station, a whole battalion of visitors were queueing up in front of the main square. The oyster festival was set up there and there were a lot of food stalls selling stuff from fresh oysters to other peripheral items to traditional performances and dances. We went around all the stalls exploring and taking pictures and we bought some snacks to eat. Then we headed out of the main square and to the 大鳥居 (otori gate), which is the landmark of Miyajima.

The endless stream of people queueing for the oyster food fare...

This is how oysters are being bbqed...

Taking a pic with the Miyajima welcome ambassador...

Along the way, we saw a lot of deers and Claire was very fascinated! (Think she really has a fetish for animals. Hehe...) A special feature of this island is that deers are free to roam and visitors can feed them!!! But I think they were so used to human contact that they will just come to you if they saw food in your hands. We kept on taking pictures of the deers, from the young to those with horns and we discovered that they liked to eat orange skins! (Claire brought a lot of oranges with her cause the pastry shop which she works in gave her a lot of oranges and some pies.) We ate some oranges and played with the deers using the orange skins until we are sick of it and continued our walk. Along the way, we visited some souvenir shops and when we reached the otori gate, we spent a considerable amount of time taking pictures of this gate and after this decided to find a good spot to sit down and have our lunch. We really liked the weather as there was sunshine with air-con conditions. Yeah! =)

This deer simply don't care what Claire is doing to it...

My turn to pose with the same deer...

The deers here will do all means to get their food. :)

Nope, no more oranges!!!

Presenting the Otorii Gate of Miyajima!!!

A close-up of me and the gate...

After lunch, we continued our exploration up to the forest before u-turning back to the shops to try out the fresh oysters and Miyajima's famous food, Momijimanju.

After comparing the prices of the different oyster shops, there was not much differences and we just queued up at one of the shops to have a try. (FYI, 2 BBQ oysters cost 400yen or around S$5.30) We also bought momijimanju, which i chose orange flavour (90yen) and Claire choosing cream and green tea flavours. And with this, as we're heading to the ferry terminal, we discovered that it was low-tide and the otori-gate was accessible by foot!!! A lot of people were heading to the gate to take pictures and we decided to go too! This gate was originally built on land but after decades, it was now submerged in water. Only low tides (which we just discovered) were we able to walk to it and touch it! Upon reaching the gate, we discovered a lot of coins in the soil surrounding the gate. They might be wishing coins thrown by other people and we saw some 50yen and 10yen coins and decided to pick them up! Haha!!! Think we collected 300yen and we shall use it to buy biscuits for tomorrow's zoo trip. =)

The process of making Momijimanju...

Our 2 fresh oysters! Yummy!!!

Yeah! The Otorii Gate being accessible during low tide!!!

With this, it was almost time to head home. We finsished the rest of the oranges and fed the orange skins to the deers. (The deers kept on following Claire with the peels until she was terrified of them! Haha...) We took 1 hr 45 minutes to cycle back to Tokaichi and both of us were so tired and our legs trembling that we agreed to take a bus to the zoo tmr...