Hiroshima Trip Day Three

Hiroshima trip final day! Alex and I got up pretty early and grabbed our usual 7/11 snacks for the road. Bananas and melon pan are the staples for me. Unfortunately we missed the bus that would take us to the shrine we were headed to, so we ended up walking for half an hour through the city while we waited for the next one to pick us up.

The bus dropped us off at the north west side of Hiroshima, on the other side of the Ōta river. There were no tourists whatsoever, which was awesome. We walked up through the quiet town for about 15 minutes before reaching the base of Mitaki-dera (shrine).

Besides a few caretakers, the shrine was empty except for Alex and I. We took our time exploring and wandering in silence, observing each small sight the location had to offer. We kept making our way up stairs towards the top of the shrine and eventually found a trailhead. Alex was unable to find details about it on Alltrails, but using our so so Japanese skills we parsed together that it was about one hour from the sign (and that we needed to watch out for hornets).

The trail took us through a fairly dense forest and some bamboo groves. It wasn't too difficult, but we did encounter a few steep sections. I could tell that the route we had picked was quite uncommon due to the amount of untouched fallen leaves on the trail. Until we reached the summit, we encountered no other hikers.

At the top, we enjoyed the view of the city and the bay. We asked a group of Japanese hikers for their recommendation on the way down, and the usual "where are you from" "why are you in Japan" questions. We hiked down the more sunny side, grabbed ramen, and then headed back to Hiroshima station to board the shinkansen for Kyoto.