but wait!! there's more of the shane...

So where were we troopers? Aaaaah yes. We had just wandered through the rainy, play-misty-for-me Thursday following our adventure in gluttony that was the nabe.

Well.

Friday was Miyajima day. Miyajima is pretty cool. You know that cliched-Japanese-red-gate-ceremonial-big-archway thing that you see on all the Japan brochures. Yeah. That one. Well, thats at Miyajima, an island shrine about 10 minutes by train and 10 minutes by ferry away from us here in the Hatsukaichi. And its right perty.
Unfortunately the shrine, built in 593, which is at waterlevel, was maced by one of the many typhoon we recently had and was surrounded by scaffolding. Still, there is plenty else to look at so all was well. The island even has "sacred" deer, basically all that means is they can shit anywhere they like. Just the same as at Nara, described a while ago on this here blog, there are the sweet young deer that wander around with wide eyes and look cute and get all the goodies from the hordes of tourists, then there are the old, cranky deer who ain't gettin' no love and resent that. Mightily. We steered (get it?) clear of those big ones.

There are very cool other things to see on Miyajima, inluding a 5-storied Pagoda with a tree inside. Thats right. A tree. The Pagoda is pretty big, what with its five stories and all, and on the inside, hanging, as it has since the 1400's is a bloody great tree. The idea is that when there is an earthquake or high winds, this hanging tree acts as a counter-weight to the movement of the shockwaves and results in the buidling moving not a jot.

Up there for thinking. Down there for dancing. Sloooow dancing.

Then there was the whacking great Senjokaku building, started in the 1500's, which I actually prefer to the shrine proper. It's all open and big and the floors are shiny from stockinged feet strolling over them for the last 500-odd years and theres no nails in the whole bloody thing. In summer we went over there with Dazza "Big Darren" Ede on his whirlwind "Eastern Lands-Greatest Hits" Tour and had a right nice lie down/nap with lots of the locals on the floor. Mmmmmmm. The Nap.

So we wandered on around and took it all in, including some grandiose Autumnal colours. They were just plain bonkers. Sure we get the odd splash of crimson and yelow in NZ during the Autumn months but this was just insane. Oranges, Pinks, Yellows, Reds, shades of all, I swear I saw a tree sporting a distinctly Puce hue, but just couldn't be sure. It was cool. It was really cool.
Then we decided to climb on the cable car and check this joint out from on high. Two cable car rides later we were well and truly on top of the world, surrounded by monkeys. Wild monkeys.

I don't really like monkeys I've decided. They are too damn freaky. the little ones are indeed cute but once they get a little longer in the tooth they just turn into red-faced, red-arsed, angry balls of screeching-rabies-laden fur. Although admittedly it is fun to ignore the signs and actually look them directly in the eye - from a distance - their mouths bare back, their eyes fly open and you can tell, in monkey talk, that they are just ITCHING to say...

"...are you....talking to me?....I don't see anybody else here....bananabananabananabanana...."

It's funny.

So we checked out the monkeys and the fine view from the lookout across the Seto Inland Sea and all its island-y beauty. At this point Nic strolled on home and Shane and I decided to tackle the rest of the hill and make it to the very tippity-top. So we braved the monkeys and wandered along a path, up and up and up and along a bit and up and up and round some corners. Before you knew it we came to another wee shrine-y building. And what do you think was in that?

For those of you who said " An iron pot of water that has been boiling continuously for over 1100 years".....Congratulations!!! You were right and it was crazy. The walls of this small building were caked in soot. The pot was doing well and it was true, it has had a fire burning under it for that long. Altogether now...

"Thats BONKERS!!!!"

Yup.

Then we were at the top and buying sweet, sweet beer from a woman who was over 70% by bodyweight wrinkles and we were taking in the view. It was right nice. Right nice indeed. We nattered, we supped, we decided to wander home.

Down, down, down, down the 2km pathway through the primeval forest, old Granddad Shane threw his knee out ninja-ing off a weir and spent the rest of the trip predicing the weather through his "old bones". The walk was real nice. We saw deer in the woods, waterfalls, rock pools, more of the Autumn colours. Yeah. It was fun.

So home we came and showered ourselves and then it was off to a local restaurant where Nic and I are making friends with the waiting staff. It was there that Shane was confronted by the awful truth he had been trying to hide for so long....with nary a qualm the waitress came along, looked at the Shane, lifted her hands to highlight her face and said....

"What a small face for such a long body...hmmmm, thats odd"

And walked away. Old Small Face didn't quite know what to say. We laughed and pointed at him.

Tooroo.
berin.