toriis

so, a torii is a big gate that marks the entrance of a shrine. symbolically it marks the border between the physical world and the spirit world. some shrines have a veritable forest of toriis leading into or out of the shrine. for whatever reason, I'm really entranced by them. I think that they are they are beautiful pieces of architecture and the way there is a concrete moment when you pass from the profane to the sacred is pretty cool. I took lots of pictures of them

before I left for japan, I stopped in a bookstore and was browsing a national geographic adventure magazine and saw there was a special on japan. in it, there was a picture of a torii standing out of the water that I thought was incredibly powerful. I desperately hoped I would get a chance to see that in real life...

the hiking path is not really a tourist attraction. people head on the hiking path to visit the shrines and pray. so we got a chance to see a bunch of people hiking from shrine to shrine and paying their respects. very cool stuff. I wouldn't mind hiking as a form of worship

after the shrines on the daibutsu hiking path, we found ourselves at the daibutsu itself, aka the great buddha. this dude is huge. gigantic. massive. it was pretty cool, although after a quiet day of hiking on the path, this tourist attraction was a little overwhelming

on our way out from kamakura we found our way to the tsurugaoka hachimangu shrine. this was in the middle of a park in the heart of town, but it blended perfectly with the surrounding nature and was just so peaceful. there was a concert going on there and while I was wandering through the shrine I saw a monk sweeping

it's thursday and I've finally finished saturday

sunday

it was time to separate from the people I'd been hanging out with and go with my city group. I think I already told you, everyone is quite a bit older than me in my city group, so I was a bit nervous. we took the bus to tokyo station where we hopped on a bullet train. these puppies go something like 300 km per hour, which is over 200 mph. even though you're going that fast, you don't really feel it because it's so smooth -- that is until another train whips by you going the other direction, so it's like it goes by at 600 kph. fast stuff

on the train, our tour guide, keiko-san told us that she had a special surprise for us. because we were getting there at 3 and had nothing to do for the rest of the day, they would take us to miyajima island. this sounded vaguely familiar from somewhere...

as we were on the ferry going over to miyajima island, I looked in the distance, and sticking up out of the water was a beautiful red torii. I took about 80 million pictures of it when we were there

the island is a mountainous archipelago, which means it was formed by volcanic action deep in the earth's crust, unlike the mountains I'm used to, which were formed mostly by glaciers. they're just jagged and primal in a way I've never experienced. we landed on the island and there were lots of tourists and deer wandering around. we made our way over to the prime torii viewing spot and wandered through the temple there and checked out the five story pagoda

*molly, side note. the five story pagoda has five levels because they represent the elements: earth, air, fire and water. they combine to make the fifth level, the universe. sound familiar?

I took my time, just relishing the beauty and power of the place and then realized that I had lost my group. so that just meant that I didn't have to feel rushed and would just meet them at our meeting place eventually, and I and watched the torii as the sun faded and watched a dad play with his 3 year old daughter in the glinting sun on the water, and a couple walking holding hands, and people taking pictures of everything. it was just one of those crystalizing moment of serenity, y'know?

then I took a ton of pictures, and then sadly it was time to leave miyajima

I know my description did not do this justice, especially since I'm trying to move quickly so I can catch up a bit more before I leave hiroshima and free internet. my description could never do a place like that justice. it is simply one of the most overwhelmingly tranquil, beautiful, powerful places I've ever been. you can just feel things -- energy, history. ok, I'm geeking out, I know. thanks for humoring me

that was sunday