Just a few more shots of the temple. As you can see, it's built on stilts jutting out over the water, which is quite impressive. In low tide, the temples stilts are all exposed and it sits in a huge mud flat. Not so impressive. Most of the temple is closed, but you can walk around the walkways at the edge of the temple, and clamber up back to the pagoda as well. If you've got time, an overnight stay in one of the traditional ryokan is highly recommended by the guidebooks, although we didn't have time. And I would recommend against it if you're pregnant or not feeling very good, or you may have a bunch of pissed off locals on your hands.

24. Miyajima

After lunch, took a ferry from Hiroshima to the vacation island of Miyajima, only to be greeted by the killer deer from Nara, only this time, they travel in packs! If you run your eyes quickly over the two pictures, it vaguely resembles the running of the bulls in Pamplona, no?

Miyajima is a sacred island, and one of those odd Shinto rules dictates that nobody can be born or die on the island, so they maintain an emergency evacuation service for those people rude enough to try to do either of those things on the island. It's quite beautiful as well, but most people (including us) don't see much of the mountainous island. Instead, it's a straight shot from the ferry terminal down the village main street to their famous temple, Itsukushima Jinja.