Join me on my first travel vlog as I guide you through Hiroshima and Miyajima Island (Itsukushima) in Japan!
The 2-day itinerary my friend planned covers the must-dos and must-eats for first-timers in the region. From seeing the Atomic Bomb Dome (Genbaku Dome), eating Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki and oysters, to taking the ferry to Miyajima, it covers everything!
While you can choose to do Miyajima as a day-trip from Hiroshima, I really recommend staying the night on the island like I did if you can.
Timestamps:
0:00 – Riding the Shinkansen to Hiroshima
1:17 – Lunch at Okonomimura
3:07 – Peace Memorial Park
5:03 – Hiroshima Castle
6:12 – Boat ride to Miyajima
7:08 – Grand Torii Gate
8:40 – The hotel
9:46 – Miyajima at night
10:54 – Itsukushima Shrine
11:58 – Cable Car up Mount Misen
14:18 – Senjokaku Pavilion
14:56 – Shopping street and local food specialties
17:00 – Return to Osaka by bus
#japantravel #japanvlog #miyajima
Hey guys, thank you so much for joining me on my very first YouTube channel video. In this video I’m going to be showing you pretty much a replay of a trip I recently made to Hiroshima and Miyajima, also known as Itsukushima. This trip was a two day trip with a one night stay on Miyajima Island and it was planned by one of my Japanese friends who has a lot of local knowledge so I think it’s a pretty solid itinerary. It covers all the must sees, the must do’s and the must eats. So just to let you know, this is the very first travel video I’ve produced and I wasn’t exactly sure how I should structure it or how long it should be so I decided I’m just going to show the footage in chronological order. I haven’t cut out too much so even some of the more mundane things like getting from A to B, like I am right here on the Shinkansen heading towards Hiroshima, I’m going to include all that stuff as well. Yeah, I mean to be honest I’m kind of just putting this video out there and I’m hoping to get some feedback on it so I know what aspects of it you like and what you think I could improve on. I’m kind of going off on a tangent here so let’s get back to the good stuff, the stuff that you tuned in for which is obviously the Hiroshima trip itself. So we got to Hiroshima station around 11am. It’s almost lunch time, we’re also feeling pretty hungry at this point. So it made sense that our first stop would be Okonomimura which is basically the place to try out Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki. Now this is the food that the city is most famous for. It’s the city’s own take on Okonomiyaki so it’s quite different from the Osaka style Okonomiyaki that people are usually more familiar with but they’re both very good and personally I prefer the Hiroshima style one and I know a lot of people who feel the same so you’ve got to try it out and as I was saying Okonomimonaut is the place to do it, it’s quite interesting. It’s located within a building, it’s spread across three floors and on each floor there’s several different stands but they’re all serving Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki. They have slightly different flavors and menus but yeah from what I understand you can’t really go wrong with any of them. The one I ended up going to was called Chi-chan, it’s on the second floor. I definitely recommend it but if that’s full you can just have a look around some of the other ones as well. So the way this works is you basically find an empty seat, sit yourself down, pick something off the menu and order it and then they’ll start cooking it right in front of you and serve it to you on a plate. Now it is a popular tourist spot so there will be an English menu available as well and you shouldn’t really have any difficulty ordering. Payment is made as you leave the stall. Other than that yeah just enjoy the meal, it’s good. After we had finished our lunch the next part of our trip was to walk over to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. This is where the atomic bomb dome is located but there’s also the Peace Memorial Museum and a few other important monuments that are definitely worth seeing. The walk itself isn’t too long, it’s around a 15 to 20 minute walk from the Okonomimura we just came from and it’s quite nice because Hiroshima it’s a pretty laid back city especially if you compare it to cities like Tokyo or Osaka so it’s quite pleasant to just walk around as we’re doing here. Now this Peace Memorial Park has a lot of things to see, there’s also a lot of things to learn about. Unfortunately I was focused on getting footage with my camera so I was kind of oblivious to my surroundings but even then just being in the presence of the atomic bomb dome and having some limited knowledge about what happened in 1945, I really did feel something. The Peace Memorial Museum was definitely one of the most memorable parts of the trip, it’s a pretty harrowing experience and a lot to take in emotionally but I don’t think this is something you can miss. I mean the permanent exhibition is really well done and I didn’t get much footage here, this is the only footage I’ve got. Something just didn’t feel right about filming the whole museum and to be honest I was pretty immersed which is pretty unusual for me. Usually in museums I’m kind of just like whatever but this one really hit me. Now the next thing in our itinerary was Hiroshima Castle, this is around a 25 minute walk from the Peace Memorial Museum. This castle is not the original, it’s actually a reconstruction, the original was destroyed by the atomic bomb but it’s a very good reconstruction. Just note that inside the castle it’s a museum, it’s not a reconstruction of the original interior. It’s a pretty good museum, you can learn about the history of the castle as well as Japanese castles in general. There’s a pretty great display of katana swords so if you’re into the whole samurai thing, this is a pretty great place to be. You can even hold an actual katana and feel the weight of it in your hands which is something I had never done before. And if you climb to the top of the castle you get a great panoramic view of the city. The buildings in Hiroshima are not that tall, most of them at least anyway. So you can really see far into the distance. So after Hiroshima Castle it was about time to start heading towards Miyajima Island. Now the most typical way to get to Miyajima is to take the train from Hiroshima Station to Miyajima-Guchi Station and then from there take a short ferry ride to the island. But my friend suggested we instead go to Hiroshima port and then take a high speed boat to the island. Now this high speed boat is a lot more expensive, it’s 2200 yen but it’s a 32 minute ride and it offers really stunning views of the area. So yeah it’s up to you whether you think it’s worth it paying extra for this high speed boat experience. I definitely think it was, it was really nice. I mean we were the only people on the boat actually so I would recommend it personally. After reaching Miyajima and getting off the boat the first thing we did was to of course head towards the famous gate of Itsukushima Shrine. Now this gate is not only the island’s most iconic landmark but it’s also one of Japan’s most famous sites in general. So when you’re on the island you’ll want to see it more than once, it’s a real sight to behold. But walking there is always nice as well. Walking around the island in general is just really enjoyable because of its laid back vibe. Just to let you know there are deer just walking around the island and these there are friendly and chill, they’re not like the weird deer in Nara who have kind of learned to headbutt people for food. So as you can see here we were approaching this gate and although it’s my second time on the island it still impresses me every time. Right now it’s low tide which means that you can walk right up to it and get some amazing photos of it up close and that’s what’s really cool about this shrine is that depending on whether it’s high tide or low tide it changes quite a lot. When it’s high tide it literally looks like it’s floating above the water and most of the you know the famous photos of it are when it’s high tide but being able to just get so close to it is also really special in my opinion. After relaxing for a bit it was time to head to our hotel to check into the room we had booked We booked at a hotel called Live Max Resort. Now this is one of the cheaper lodgings available in the area. There are a lot of really nice traditional high end Ryokan on Miyajima but this place was also really nice. It had onsen, it had a buffet restaurant, a swimming pool, an entertainment area, a karaoke room. You know it had a lot going for it and I think we paid 17,500 yen and that was including all you can eat dinner and breakfast so it was a pretty good deal. The room we booked was one of the bigger ones and it actually came with a private bath which was a really nice touch. I took advantage of it but I also went in the onsen a couple of times and just to add to that there was more than one onsen. I think there were two in the resort. Now I don’t know how much there is to do on the island at night but that’s kind of the beauty of it. It’s a great place to wind down and just chill. What we ended up doing was after eating at the buffet restaurant, which was really good by the way, We went to the entertainment part of the hotel, played some table tennis, played some crane games and then we went outside again to check out the torii gate but this time we stopped at the convenience store on the way and bought a few drinks so that we could drink while enjoying a spectacular view. After that we headed back to the hotel, chilled a bit in the room, took turns using the private bath and finally it was time to sleep. After waking up early, feeling nice and refreshed, it was time to do our first activity of the day which was to visit Itsukushima Shrine itself. As I previously said walking around this island is just really nice so we took our sweet time enjoying the views around us, enjoying the amazing weather that we got that day. The shrine itself was also really awesome, I mean as you would expect there were a lot of travelers, a lot of foreign tourists but also school children on their school trips here. But even then it felt really chill because I guess everyone was just in a relaxed mood thanks to the power of the island. It also seemed like there was a traditional wedding ceremony taking place, I can’t imagine that was cheap but yeah what an amazing place to get married at. Next up on the itinerary was to go up Mount Misen. Now you can actually hike this mountain, the first time I came to Miyajima I hiked up it and I came back down as well by foot. It’s not a particularly difficult climb but it does take quite a lot of time so what we did this time was to take the cable car up and down, that’s what probably most travelers do really, it’s also really nice to take the cable car. The cable car station is located approximately 10 to 15 minutes away from the shrine that we had just visited. I definitely recommend walking there because it’s a nice walk and there’s some nice things to see but there is also the option of taking a shuttle bus for free to the cable car station if you prefer. Upon completing the two-part cable car journey you’ll find that you don’t actually reach the very top of Mount Misen. To get to the very top and enjoy the most spectacular views the island has to offer you will need to complete a 20 to 30 minute hike up to the Mount Misen observatory. This wasn’t that challenging for me as I already mentioned I did climb the entire mountain previously but it’s also not a walk in the park so make sure you’ve got a drink with you and take as much time as you need. As you can see the views from the top are absolutely stunning. The observatory itself does have a nice resting area and we relaxed here because we were going to be doing the exact same hike back to the cable car station which is also a little tiring as I mentioned. After descending the mountain and returning to the main part of the island there are a few things you can do. We decided to go to Senjokaku which literally means a pavilion of 1000 mats. It’s a huge shrine that is really worth visiting just because of its really unique nature. Daishou-in, a temple that’s also nearby, is also worth going to. We didn’t go on this occasion because I had already visited it on my previous trip to Miyajima but if you have time definitely consider adding that to your itinerary. At this point we had finished visiting all the sites that we had planned to see on this island so now it was time to head to the shopping street and enjoy the food and drink that Miyajima had to offer. Now there are a lot of things to try here but I’m going to talk about the ones that you definitely need to try. First up is the fried Momiji Manju. This is the deep fried version of the Momiji Manju which is a tasty little Japanese snack. Hiroshima is also Japan’s biggest producer of oysters and lemons so why not put them together by enjoying oysters with a lemon sour, a popular Japanese alcoholic beverage. If alcohol is not your thing there are plenty of other lemon based drinks that are worth trying such as lemonade and lemon squash. Another very popular Hiroshima speciality is Anagomeshi. This translates to conger eel rice. Now you might be familiar with Unagi which is Japanese eel and that’s what’s used in a lot of sushi dishes and is popular across Japan. Conger eel is less common but it’s also very good. I personally prefer the taste of Unagi but I’ve heard other people say otherwise so it’s definitely worth trying and I’d be interested to know which one you prefer. However you don’t need to try all these dishes at once on Miyajima Island. We were all feeling pretty full after the oysters, don’t forget that we had also eaten the all you can eat breakfast at the hotel in the morning so we decided to take the ferry back to the mainland and just a short walk away from the mainland ferry terminal. There’s a really famous Anagomeshi, conger eel rice restaurant and that’s where we ate the conger eel rice. We had now accomplished everything we had set out to do in the itinerary and the only thing left to do was to head back to Osaka which is where we were travelling from. Now although we came by bullet train because we wanted to arrive in Hiroshima as early as possible, we weren’t in a hurry to get back to Osaka so we decided to take the express bus instead which saves a significant amount of money but it is a fairly long journey, keep that in mind it’s around 5 hours so depending on how much of a hurry you’re in, the bullet train might be a better option especially if you’ve already got a JR pass. Anyway thank you so much for watching this video right up until the end, I hope you enjoyed it, I’d really love to get some feedback on what you think about this video, I do hope to make some more travel videos in the future, I don’t have any planned as of right now but it is something I’m already starting to think about and so yeah I just hope you enjoyed this video and if you’re visiting Japan, I hope you have a great trip.