{"id":22471,"date":"2014-06-20T10:02:27","date_gmt":"2014-06-20T15:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=22471"},"modified":"2014-06-21T03:43:53","modified_gmt":"2014-06-21T08:43:53","slug":"miyajima-part-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=22471","title":{"rendered":"Miyajima Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Miyajima Part 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nOn my God!!! That moss roof looks heavenly. It looks so soft and plush!! I want to roll around in it.<\/p>\n

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\nWhat’s going on?<\/p>\n

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\nOh, seems like a newly wed couple came here to pray. We saw this newly wed again later tonight stroll around romantically. How nice to be newly wed….oh wait, that’s us too!!<\/p>\n

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\nPenis and balls.<\/p>\n

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\nSake as offering for the shrine.<\/p>\n

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\nCartons of soy sauce is also offered…I prefer sake.<\/p>\n

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\nOf course, wouldn’t be complete if some section wasn’t under renovation.<\/p>\n

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\nThat’s that for the shrine. It’s really a pretty simple shrine.<\/p>\n

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\nMiyajima is really picturesque though. It feels peaceful out here.<\/p>\n

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\nDon’t judge me because I am laying in piles of my own filth.<\/p>\n

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\nMore moss on the roof. Love.<\/p>\n

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\nKL points. This how my dog stretches, right before he farts. Seriously.<\/p>\n

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\nSo much moss, so much love. RL and I are united through our love for moss.<\/p>\n

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\nWe are STARVING. Even though we’ve got dinner at our ryokan in about 3 hours, we are so hungry that we need some food NOW!<\/p>\n

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\nCan you tell that RL is excited to eat her noodles?<\/p>\n

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\nSlurp slurp slurp.<\/p>\n

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\nEgg and fried pork over rice…This is actually the best thing I’ve eaten on this entire trip. No joke. Just the right combination of hunger, beautiful environment, and the right kind of comfort food. Seriously, we both ate our meal in silence we were enjoying it so much. I’m going to remember this meal for months…or maybe even years. Ohhh, it was sooo goooood!!!!<\/p>\n

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\nYeah, lick my chest hair.<\/p>\n

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\nTime to head back towards our ryokan to chill out until dinner time.<\/p>\n

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\nBut first, some ice cream. I don’t know how I am going to be able to eat dinner in 3 hours…<\/p>\n

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\nGreen tea soft serve. Divine.<\/p>\n

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\nThese maple leave shaped cakes with fillings are local to this area and all the shops around here sell them. We brought a few to try.<\/p>\n

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\nThey also have naughty sake cups here as well. Too bad we don’t have much room left in our luggage to carry more stuff back home.<\/p>\n

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\nThe machine that makes the maple leaf cakes.<\/p>\n

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\nRight next to our ryokan is a small grocery store, we’ll stock up a little.<\/p>\n

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\nGiving the maple leaf cake a try. Surprisingly good!<\/p>\n

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\nThen in no time, it’s 7pm and time for our Kaiseki, traditional multi course Japanese meal. This meal and the Japanese bath are the two quintessential ryokan experiences.<\/p>\n

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\nThe dining area also looks out onto the small garden.<\/p>\n

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\nGot some sake, seems like to right thing to do for this meal.<\/p>\n

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\nSooo good. The wasabi was actual the real grated wasabi too!<\/p>\n

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\nTofu mixed with other vegetables.<\/p>\n

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\nWe got a bowl of raw ground and seasoned chicken. We were shown that we use the spoon to make little meatballs to cook in our soy milk based hotpot.<\/p>\n

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\nMore fish.<\/p>\n

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\nThis was actually the best part of the meal. We got pieces of beef, and it was some of the most delicious cuts of meat we’ve ever had. Melts in your mouth, and it wasn’t even Kobe beef(we asked). I am going to remember this beef about as long as I remember my rice bowl from 3 hours ago, a long long time.<\/p>\n

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\nMandarin flavored ice cream to finish up the meal. That meal was delicious and fun. Ahhhhh, so happy.<\/p>\n

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\nNow that it’s dark, we wanted to get some photos of the torii gate and the shrine lit up at night.<\/p>\n

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\nSaw this crab walking around in the middle of the road.<\/p>\n

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\nI hope it doesn’t get stepped on.<\/p>\n

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\nTotoro, minus Totoro and rain and umbrella and bus stop sign and Japanese girl. You get the idea.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s low tide, we can walk out to the gate.<\/p>\n

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\nThe lighting for the shrine isn’t as good, so this is the only photo I took of it.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>RL says that I look like a complete creeper in this photo.<\/p>\n

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\nThe posts are covered with barnacles and coins that people have put on them.<\/p>\n

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\nThere are also many coins that have fallen down at the base of the posts.<\/p>\n

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\nRL being…RL.<\/p>\n

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\nOK, time to head back to our ryokan and take a Japanese bath!<\/p>\n

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\nOf course, we changed into our yukata(a casual kimono) before taking our baths.<\/p>\n

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\nOur ryokan has private baths so that families can take baths together. Usually, the baths are public, with one bath for males and one for females.<\/p>\n

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\nThe water is from a hot spring, and it fills the whole tub continuously. We are supposed to keep that tub filled and overflowing the whole time we are bathing so that it’s always fresh water.<\/p>\n

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\nBefore getting into the tub, we are supposed to shower.<\/p>\n

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\nAaahhhh. The water was very very hot, and we couldn’t stand being inside for too long. Felt very nice and relaxing though.<\/p>\n

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\nHot and relaxed from the bath.<\/p>\n

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\nLook at how low the doorways are. I can hit my head on it.<\/p>\n

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\nMe and my samurai sword(pocket knife). You ever watch samurai movies where they take off a sleeve so that it doesn’t restrict them swinging their blade? Not clearly shown, but RL also tied a top knot for me.<\/p>\n

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\nAfter our bath, it’s time for some hot green tea.<\/p>\n

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\nAnd…time to watch this. We wanted to watch this in the movie theaters here in Japan, but for some reason, it doesn’t get released until July in Japan, a couple of months after many other countries. Too bad the movie was only ok…<\/p>\n

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\nBut seriously, what an awesome day full of quintessential traditional Japanese experiences!!<\/p>\n

To be continued at Hiroshima Day 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Miyajima Part 1. On my God!!! That moss roof looks heavenly. It looks so soft and plush!! I want to roll around in it. What’s going on? Oh, seems like a newly wed couple came here to pray. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":22170,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-22471","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22471"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22798,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22471\/revisions\/22798"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}