The journey to Miyamjima

Yesterday, Friday, Markian and I finally got to take our trip to Miyajima island. I'd wanted to go there since my last visit to Japan, so I was incredibly excited. We had been putting it off, as I wanted to make sure I timed it right to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom on the island.

I am cheap so we rode the street car instead of the train down to Miyajima-guchi station, which takes about an hour from the city center of Hiroshima. I enjoy riding the street car, because I like to look out the window and see the sites, so I didn't mind the ride. It's also nice when you get on early and there is a seat to sit in. The street car far within the city is only 150 yen a ride...but once you go west and south towards Miyajima the far slowly increases. It costs us 270 yen one way to Miyajima-guchi station which isn't bad at all.


Then you take a ferry, either JR (Japan Rail) or another company which we ended up taking. The price is the same, so it doesn't really matter. We did notice later though that JR has ferries that leave earlier in the morning and later at night than the other company. The ferry is a little under 400 yen round trip. The ferry ride itself is nice because you can see the huge Tori gate on you approach to the island. It seems to get bigger and bigger as you see in my pictures as you scroll towards the bottom. We were the only nuts out on the balcony on the top of the boat and not inside. It was so cold with the wind blowing, but I was so excited and happy to be there and I wanted my pictures!
Speaking of pictures, I have a new camera!!! Yeah!!! So, no more picture disasters or mishaps or hours trying to download! I took over 300 pictures yesterday and still have many more from earlier to share with you, so many more posts about Miyajima will be made after this when I get around to it! Today we go to work to get our schedules. We're finally going to know what classes we will be teaching! I'm nervous and excited!