And, not to put too fine a point on it, the oysters I got were (a) huge and (b) bloody magnificent. Don't believe me? Here's the evidence.
With lunch out of the way we were left balancing two options. Madam wanted to get up to the top of Mount Misen, and we'd avoided Itsukushima Shrine earlier in the piece because of the morning's low tide.
Since it was around one, with a good hour and a bit to high tide it seemed like the rope way up to the top (well, not quite the actual top, but close to it) seemed like the way to go.
We made our way through the back streets to the point where you pre-purchase tickets, did that, noted the crowd waiting for the courtesy bus, figured we wouldn't fit on the next one and decided, in that case, there was no choice but too hoof it to the bottom station.
It's a good ten minute walk (seven, we were reminded along the way, if you run a bit) but with the backpack in the wake of the morning's extensive up hill and down dale scramble, there wasn't going to be much running and, in any case most of it is uphill and most of the uphill involves stairs that aren't always spaced to make them easy to climb when you've got my stride pattern.
Still, we seemed to have arrived at the base station before the courtesy bus, and joined the queue, underlining another positive reason for walking, and eventually found ourselves in a gondola with four Japanese girls, some of whom, as Madam informed me later, weren't too good on heights either.
Hughesy isn't particularly good on heights, but that had nothing to do with my spot with my back to the view for the ascent. When you're the last one in, you're generally not given much choice on where you sit.
Rope ways don't handle curves, and subsequently need to work in straight lines, so there's a station just under three hundred and fifty metres up a fairly steeply pitched slope where you change for the next stage, which for some reason involves larger gondolas with the majority of passengers standing up.
With my back to the view, I hadn't been able to see much and though, for the first bit I'd tried to turn around and admire the view that had everyone else marveling there was something in the girth department that made rotating the trunk difficult. Those considerations didn't apply on the second stage, which more or less travels above a ridge that leads to the summit, and was rewarded with a view across the other side of the ridge to the Seto Inland Sea that was nothing short of breathtaking.
Earlier in the day, Madam had been talking about going the extra distance and doing the twenty minute circuit from the second rope way station to the summit, where there are a number of temples and places of interest.
At the centre of Miyajima, Mt. Misen's ascetic status as a holy mountain site dates back to the autumn of 806 and the spiritual sites scattered around the summit, add another dimension to the panoramic views across the Seto Inland sea, though, obviously, we weren't going to be visiting them this time around.