Japan Photos (Miyajima, First Day.)
Take a walk with me. And a ferry ride. And eat an innovative gourmet dinner...
Miyajima is an island off the coast of Hiroshima. To get there, you take a small train to Miyajima-guchi, then catch a ferry. This statue was outside of the ferry port.
Miyajima, from the ferry. I hadn't realized how big the island was, but I think much of it is virgin forest. (I cannot write that phrase without recalling the possibly apocryphal student essay sentence, "A virgin forest is a place where the hand of man has never set foot." And also the sentence an actual student of Sherwood's wrote, "And then the hand of fate stepped in.")
The Itsukushima torii, at high tide, as seen from the ferry.
We walked along the shoreline until we reached our ryokan...
View from the ryokan.
We walked to the torii that evening, at low tide. The beach was strewn with green seaweed, and the sand around the torii was strewn with coins.
The proprietor of the ryokan made an amazing multi-course dinner for us, served in a dining room with a view of a small courtyard garden. To my surprise, it was partly a Japanese-European fusion dinner, not only traditional Japanese.
Salmon, if I recall correctly. Delicate and delicious.
An unusual eel preparation, not sweet. Smoked, I think. Intense fishy flavor, densely textured.
Yellowtail, in slices, and hirame, in the form of a rose.
Cook it yourself cream of chicken soup. The broth, of white miso, cream, and I think white wine, was in the chafing dish. We added raw noodles and vegetables, and a paste which we formed into balls and dropped in. The paste became garlicky chicken dumplings. This was Cari's favorite dish.
I was dubious of this but it turned out to be a very tasty fish cake.
Fish baked in tin foil, in a tomato-based sauce. Very nice.
I neglected to photograph the last two courses, but one was spectacularly good grilled beef, and the dessert was an an excellent, light, intensely flavored tangerine sorbet.
After dinner, we went out to the coastline again.
The shrine across from the torii is built as a pier, on stilts, so that it seems to float at high tide.
Later, the tide rose once more.
Miyajima is an island off the coast of Hiroshima. To get there, you take a small train to Miyajima-guchi, then catch a ferry. This statue was outside of the ferry port.
Miyajima, from the ferry. I hadn't realized how big the island was, but I think much of it is virgin forest. (I cannot write that phrase without recalling the possibly apocryphal student essay sentence, "A virgin forest is a place where the hand of man has never set foot." And also the sentence an actual student of Sherwood's wrote, "And then the hand of fate stepped in.")
The Itsukushima torii, at high tide, as seen from the ferry.
We walked along the shoreline until we reached our ryokan...
View from the ryokan.
We walked to the torii that evening, at low tide. The beach was strewn with green seaweed, and the sand around the torii was strewn with coins.
The proprietor of the ryokan made an amazing multi-course dinner for us, served in a dining room with a view of a small courtyard garden. To my surprise, it was partly a Japanese-European fusion dinner, not only traditional Japanese.
Salmon, if I recall correctly. Delicate and delicious.
An unusual eel preparation, not sweet. Smoked, I think. Intense fishy flavor, densely textured.
Yellowtail, in slices, and hirame, in the form of a rose.
Cook it yourself cream of chicken soup. The broth, of white miso, cream, and I think white wine, was in the chafing dish. We added raw noodles and vegetables, and a paste which we formed into balls and dropped in. The paste became garlicky chicken dumplings. This was Cari's favorite dish.
I was dubious of this but it turned out to be a very tasty fish cake.
Fish baked in tin foil, in a tomato-based sauce. Very nice.
I neglected to photograph the last two courses, but one was spectacularly good grilled beef, and the dessert was an an excellent, light, intensely flavored tangerine sorbet.
After dinner, we went out to the coastline again.
The shrine across from the torii is built as a pier, on stilts, so that it seems to float at high tide.
Later, the tide rose once more.