Day 6: Miyajima/Itsukushima Shrine

Oh boy, what a day!!

So started out with a cloudy day and just a tiny bit of rain - sprinkling here and there. After walking around the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, we had planned to get on a boat to get to Miyajima - about 20min ferry ride off the port on Hiroshima. Again, it was raining a bit, but we were totally happy with our umbrellas and dry feet.

We go on the boat and get to the island- it starts pouring!!! We're​ able to get ourselves to the village and decide to have some lunch, and maybe the rain would settle down a bit. We finish lunch and it starts raining HARDER!!! At this point, our shoes were soaked and it started raining sideways. We just felt like we needed to get to the Itsukushima Shrine to see what we came to the island to see and then get the hell outta there!!!

We see the shrine and LOTS of wild deer - and even with the rain, the shrine grounds were pretty amazing and I'm glad we went to see it!

As we start heading back to the port to catch the ferry, there is a island-wide announce made - that the winds were too rough, and they had stopped all services back to the main land. We were stranded. The lobby in the port terminal was at a standstill, hundreds of people just standing around and trying to stay dry.

After about 1.5 hours they finally get the OK to send the ferries off!! As soon as the gates opened to get in the ferries, it was complete chaos! People yelling, running, and pushing (and of course, Maisie had fallen asleep on my back right before they started letting people through, so I'm just trying to stay together with my mom and Steven and preventing Maisie from getting squished by other people). We managed to get on the 2nd ferry. It was like the apocalypse was happening and we were all trying to escape the zombies/aliens/tsunami/lava by ferry.

After a windy and wet ferry ride back on the mainland, we got on a crowded train and finally made it back to the hotel - we're exhausted but just had an amazing "okonomiyaki" meal, showered, and ready for bed. Goodnight!

PS- once we escaped "death by rain" and made it back safely - it was a fun day and definitely a good story for the books :)Read more