A bit of a delay in posting about my last day in Miyajima. More than likely it was because I spent a fair amount of time in nature and not so much time sightseeing. I left Miyajima on the 27th.
Miyajima is probably one of the most spiritual places I have been to in a long time. It is amazing considering there are so many people elsewhere on the island, it makes seeing the forest void of people a welcome change.
I attempted taking one of the paths up the mountain, not doing any research prior, it ended up being the longest path and with lots of stairs. Leave it to me to do things the hard way. To give you some sort of idea of the amount of stairs, I probably walked around 2 kilometers round trip up and I would say at least half of or a bit more were stairs. Stairs normally are my biggest enemy, make me do lunges or squats any day, anything but stairs. That being said, I did lots of them. There was one point where stopping seemed like a good idea. There were excuses running through my head, but I continued to climb. Eventually I did have to stop, but the climbing made me realize that I can push myself more and I am not as out of shape as I thought. The climbing was meditative, it really helped to live in the moment. The moment my mind strayed to something else, my balance started going. There was no other choice but to focus on the moment. It was a walking meditation.
As an added bonus, the morning I left it was high tide, which is what I wanted to see. It was just by chance that I caught it as I was leaving.
Adairmoon 