day 155, Miyajima

Last night called my good mate Jason for a catch up then to bed, got up early-ish to head out to Miyajimi, got the tram there and found my hostel which is next door pretty much to the ferry port. I dropped off Michele, got given a map of Miyajima (I should add that Miyajima is a small island just 10mins ferry away and I’m staying right by the ferry port for convenience) and headed for the ferry. I’m getting into a bad habit of having breakfast and lunch at the same time, though I did that again and I felt grand. I got told the coal walking festival was between 11-3, and the high tide was around 4ish in order to see the O-torii gate ‘float’, so I spent a couple of hours walking around, stopping off at Daishoin Temple which was a very cool place, and reading a new book I picked up, the Virgin Suicides. I stumbled upon the festival (to be fair it’s more of a Buddhist ceremony, 8 monks were in the middle of a cordoned off area,  all dressed up, this coffin shaped thing covered in green leafs all over it. They were chanting, a drum was banging and a couple of them were blowing horns of some description. There was a bloke with a longbow going to different places and shooting sticks very tamely into the crowd after a long chant. After that was done with they set about lighting the middle thing which slowly caught light, emitting tonnes of smoke. After just slowly smoking fire erupted, soon all the greenery was gone and it was considerably less then boxy. The monks then got out boxes of what looked like spatulas with writing on and started blessing these and then throwing them on the fire. There were thousands of these things and they were doing 10-20 at a time and took ages. Once it was starting to die down 2 monks took a small tree with handles nailed into either end and started flattening and arranging the hot coals, then added thin strips of charcoal which quickly caught light, and then to everyone’s surprise the main monk got a sword from somewhere, the rest of the monks followed him and lined up at the coals when the fire was still going some and the flames about a metre high, chanted something and then all 8 of them rushed through it. The flames quickly died, it was flattened and arranged again, then the spectators were let a go, with being blessed before  and after. I got in the queue and did it. I was surprised at how long the queue was and took about 35 mins, there were all sorts queuing, from an almost ancient couple in front of me to a family with young children behind me. When my turn came the monks blessed me and tapped me on the back with this bell contraption and nudged me onto the coals. They were hot though not burning since you were not on them long enough. When I reached the end another monk repeated the procedure and I followed the line into the shrine in front of the Buddha and back out into the yard. The ceremony was coming to an end so I went to the water front to wait out for high tide around 4, read a bit of my book then made my way to O-torii Gate, a gate in the orange Japanese style which is said to ’float’ and was voted one of the three best views in japan. It was good to see though wouldn’t go that far, though no doubt when that was written (it’s taken from a book that was written in 1643 titled ’Observations about the remains of Japan’s civil affairs’ by Shunsai Hayashi) that the surroundings and ambience was completely different. Deciding to make a move to beat the fading light I didn’t see it at true high tide, I walked through Momijidani Park, following a small river and crossing numerous deer and beautifully landscaped areas and walked up Mt Misen. The views there were stunning, as it was late in the day there was hardly anyone around and could see for miles and noticed the size of Miyajima. I then walked down a different way, stopping for 10mins to sit on a massive boulder to watch the sunset which was stunning, and carried on down in near darkness. Got the ferry back to the hostel having had a brilliant day, am very relaxed and happy, in a lovely position where I can work out where I am going to next.