Dear Family and Friends,
This morning I traveled to Miyajima island with the rest of my Tisp Scholars. I didn’t know what to expect besides the famous red floating O-torii gate. We all got on the ferry and had a short ride on the top deck, taking photos of ourselves as we sailed across. The trip was something like 5 minutes but it was so cool seeing the island from a distance and slowly seeing the features and shrines becoming more clear.
Once we got to the island we all got off the ferry and instantly became entranced in the beauty of it all. The rolling green mountains, the deep aqua blue water, and–much to my delight–the cute deer that lived on the island just lounging around. We walked over to the O-torii gate and took lots of photos. Some individually, a large group one and one by the different colleges and groups that contributed to the trip. I asked if we could take a group photo of all the STEM majors for Seaver college since we had quite a few on the trip including myself. Oh oh, little did I know that my college didn’t contribute financially to this trip, something I was quickly made aware of as I laughed nervously from hearing this news, Awkward!!! Hopefully that will change next year. After taking more photos and spending a considerable amount of our limited time at this one scenic location, Dr. Rooks recommended we move on since we literally had a whole island we could explore. From there we continued onto the main Itsukushima Shrine. The shrine was a beautiful red structure with long dark brown wooden walkways that float just above the water. There were spots where people could leave offerings. I felt very fortunate to be able to enter a sacred place like this.
Something I found special was when I saw a long line of people on a pier, I was curious what they were in line for. They were all standing in single file, no one seemed to be in a rush. At the front of the line was one person who was closest to the water, seeming to be doing some sort of ritual. Later I learned that the people lining up were waiting for their turn to make a wish. The wish could be for anything from world peace to health or even good luck on an exam. I heard that CEO’s of big companies would travel here at the beginning of the year wishing for good fortune and a successful year for their business. I found the whole idea interesting and cool to see so many people participating.
From there we split into groups to explore. We went by the Daiganji temple, and you guessed it, we took some photos and inevitably ended up in a gift shop nearby. There were so many unique handcrafted items from paintings to clay sculptures and little figurines. Something I noticed in Japanese culture is that there are a lot of depictions of animals and characters that are made to be very “cute”. Even when you think you’ve seen the cutest stuffed animal dog with a tiny body and a giant head and giant puppy eyes that are somehow larger than the whole stuffed animal then you’ll see an even cuter little bear right next to it. Even the cars being smaller seemed cute compared to the hulking metal beasts in the USA. As a first time visitor to the country, I found it interesting to see ‘cuteness’ in Japan across the board. At the gift store I was looking at these clay figures of cats to give as a gift to my sister. I had a hard time deciding between which one because there were so many and they all had unique Japanese characters written on their chests. My friend Emma helped translate the characters for me and I ended up getting a lucky cat with the word “dreams” written on it.
After leaving the gift shop, I led the way towards Momijidani Park in search of the deer. We eventually found the park, but were a little underwhelmed when we found very few deer there. Min-Jung pointed out that we saw more deer by the docks as soon as we got off the boat. We started to make our way back, getting a little lost along the way, adding to the fun and adventure and to our surprise closer to where the ferry boat had dropped us off we would find many deer. That was very cool.
At that point it was nearly time to regroup by the boat. As we were walking back we went through the main shopping street. Terrible idea. Most of our group was instantly sucked into the shops to see all the amazing items and art inside. Realizing that we were almost going to be late, D'Anthony, Emma and I SPRINTED back towards the meeting point and made it barely on time. That race back towards the boat was pretty fun honestly. The rest of the group showed up eventually and we all got on the ferry.
It was bittersweet to leave the island so soon, but I was glad to explore such an amazing and special place with a fantastic group of people. Memories that I will surely cherish forever.
Best,
-Daniel Pedler
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