TacoCat’s Travels #156 (Hiroshima): Conquering Mountains in Enchanting Nature ⛰

Hey Hive!

If you missed the last few posts, we're recounting our trip to Hiroshima back in April 2019! Sean had won some free air tickets to Hiroshima from a lucky draw sponsored by one of the local banks in Singapore, DBS! Since we've never been, we decided that was a good chance to explore the Chūgoku region!

So last week, we continued our journey through the famous Shrine Island, Miyajima and ate lots of snacks as went through Omotesando Shopping Street! It was interesting to try the different local specialities like these deep fried sponge cakes!

Anyway, we started making our way to the Miyajima Ropeway at the end of the last post so let's-a-go!

11 April 2019. Thursday.

Here's a map of the whole island again for reference. We already explored the main Itsukushima shrine and Omotesando shopping street so with our bellies full of yummy snacks, we made our way to the Ropeway which would take us up to Mt. Misen at the top of the island!

So this was the Ropeway Entrance but we had a bit to walk until the actual station.

We actually ended up a little lost and wound up exploring this small town first.

But it was quite lovely so we didn't mind. We even saw a deer wandering the streets as well.

There were a lot of small shops along the way like this one with these huge intricate wood carvings! It was quite a sight!

There was also this souvenir shop with T-shirts, fabrics and a pretty creepy-looking daruma in the back.

We eventually found our way out of the little town and around this quaint path behind a restaurant.

And finally found this sign that point us in the right direction!

The path to the ropeway station was through a more "naturey" place away from civilisation, which made sense since it was on the way to the mountain.

But it felt like we were walking into a whole other world! The many different colours of the leaves were so beautiful!

There were still a couple of buildings here and I think they were houses or inns? They were definitely quite sheltered. But we always wonder who would live out here. I bet it would be interesting to talk to theses people and know about their lives since it's such a different environment from us city folk.

Luckily there were more signs around pointing us in the right direction because there were so many branching pathways. I bet we weren't the only people who got lost.

We even saw these 4 doggos all dressed up with their adorable little jackets!

It might be our lack of exposure to lots of nature but just walking around all the trees and breathing in the cooling air felt so refreshing. And everything looked so pretty to me!

Everywhere I looked felt like it could be a painting!

There were winding pathways too. I liked that even though we were walking through the wilderness it was obviously still man-made with these clearly demarcated paths. But it still felt natural in a sense.

We were stopping to take lots of photos every time so the walk definitely took us longer than the sign said.

It's just such a different experience than what we're used to in Singapore that I didn't want to waste this chance to not photograph it! Look at that natural waterfall and how clean the water is here! I bet you could drink that water.

There was a bridge overlooking this waterfall that we had to cross and I'm a fan of these Japanese-style bridges. Now every time I look at these it just reminds me of Animal Crossing XD

At least while we were admiring the nature we were slowly making progress on our way to the Ropeway station!

We just needed to go up these stairs and we're there!

Soon enough, we were in the cable car on our way up the mountain! Thankfully there wasn't much of a line so we didn't have to wait at all! I didn't really have time to take a picture of the station because there wasn't much to photograph tbh since the cable cars were continuously coming and going and we had to board quickly. But here's a video of when we just left the station: 

We were actually super lucky to get a whole car to ourselves so we could take as much photos and videos as we wanted!

And man, what a view! It felt like we walked quite a ways already just getting to the station, but we were definitely going up the mountain now.

I guess this is really the most efficient method of going to the top since I'm pretty sure it's impossible to hike. Plus that way they wouldn't have to wreck the trees and destroy the nature here.

I don't think we've actually ridden a cable car together before so this was a whole new experience! And it had probably been maybe a decade since I'd actually ridden a cable car at that point.

You could actually see Hiroshima across the sea from here!

I wonder how long they actually took to build this ropeway and how they actually did it too! But what an impressive feat! We passed by this station and thought we were gonna stop here but we saw another station in front and more cars up ahead and figured this was abandoned.

I'm not sure what sea this was, but that island in the middle looks so lonely.

Sorry for the bad lighting, but we were soon arriving!

When we reached the station we hopped out immediately since we didn't want to hold anybody up.

And the view was absolutely breathtaking!

It was actually kinda scary to be up so high with only trees beneath you.

There was an area with railings that provided a nice lookout point. I was so scared of dropping my phone or anything tbh and I was clutching the railings for dear life.

I'm not normally scared of heights but it was still pretty scary to be there since some areas didn't even have railings.

It was really cool though! And it was actually strangely quiet up there apart from the noise from other tourists.

There was this rock with the words Sentonaikai National Park which I guess was the name of this entire area. According to Wikipedia it was designated in 1934 and has been expanded multiple times and contains about 3,000 islands!

There were a few different lookout spots and even gazebos on the mountain.

Including this spot overlooking that lonely island we saw from the cable car!

This was the map for Mt Misen and there were actually quite a few things up there like the Miyama Shrine, and Misen halls!

Most of the terrain up there was actually quite rough, and we did try walking around for a bit but it got quite tiring with huge rocks we had to climb on. It definitely felt like hiking and our shoes did not feel like the proper footwear for it.

It felt kinda dangerous at times too, and we thought it would be more cooling up here but it actually got quite warm.

So after a while we kinda gave up and went back to the Ropeway. It was also getting late and we still wanted to go back to the torii gate and take pictures before our ferry back.

So soon enough, we took the cable car back down and started making our way back from the Ropeway station.

We saw more deer as we went out of the town.

And just as we expected, the ride was low when we got back to the huge torii gate at the shore of Miyajima!

Everyone was down on the seabed taking pictures at the gate so we made sure to grab lots of photos too!

Besides, we were so lucky to have been able to catch the sight of the torii gate both at high and low tide!

It was quite crowded and the weather wasn't the best we tried.

It was definitely the biggest torii gate I've ever seen and probably will ever see in my life. I'm pretty sure it's the biggest in the world too!

The bottom of the seabed was actually littered with coins! Just 10, 20, 50 yen coins everywhere! I guess people tossed them at the gate for good luck?

It felt so weird to be standing there when just a few hours ago this whole place was covered with water. It was still pretty muddy though so we had to be careful.

It was getting late, so we stopped by the snack shop and got another fried cake on the way back to the ferry terminal.

We saw this very grumpy-looking stray cat!

who took a drink from the condensation of the cold water bottles!

Eventually, we took the ferry back and ended the day with dinner in our favourite Gyoza Osho!

Where Sean of course got his favourite mapo tofu!

Man what a day! I'm so sorry for the long post, but there wasn't much left after the ropeway so I just wanted to get through this day in 1 post. Hope you enjoyed it and tune in next week for what we do next!

Thanks 

To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!

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Check out my previous post in this series!

TacoCat’s Travels #155 (Hiroshima): Snacking and Shopping on Shrine Island! 😋

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