Miyajima Omotesandō Shopping Street

This guide to Miyajima's Omotesando shopping street, near Hiroshima, starts with the deer that roam it by the hundreds, ignoring every wooden souvenir in favor of your snacks. It traces the arcade's real business back to a Buddhist monk named Seishin, who around the 1790s dreamed of a goddess holding a lute and taught local carvers to shape rice scoops in its likeness, giving the island a trade beyond fishing. The street still sells that scoop, the shamoji, by the thousand, alongside oyster grills and sweet shops between the ferry pier and the shrine. Keep an eye behind you all the same.