Miyajima rainy blues

Rainy blues would have been not so bad but instead I had to battle vs Arashi. (ok I am laughing at my own joke here) Ok in plain english… 70mm of rain in less than an hour. I got stuck inside a temple where a nice lady was offering towel and hot tea to everyone. It was scary at time. It didn’t look like rain anymore, it looked like a waterfall from the sky. When it finally calmed down to pouring rain, we were told we should hurry back to the boat and get back to the train station as soon as possible and leave the area. Which I did…

But let’s go back in time. I got to Miyajima early in the morning and was amazed at how beautiful the island was. I walked to the main temple and took may picture of the Tori (one of Japan’s 3 sight). Last year I saw Fuji so now I only have 1 sight left to see. The tide was high so we could not walk all the way to the Tori (same principle as Le Rocher Percé à Québec). So I decided to visit other sights while the tide would go down… that’s when the sky opened up and fell on our head!

I still had time to eat one Hiroshima-fu Okonomiyaki with Kaki!!! (Hiroshima style cabbage and soba pancake with oysters) It was delicious!!! The Oyster were huge!!!

Hiroshima-fu Okonomiyaki with Kaki

This is a place I really want to go back too… I want to eat more oyster and I would like a sunny day so I could take pictures of the beautiful scenery.

So I got back to Hiroshima and played text message tag with Ayumi (who is in Canada).We spent the whole afternoon texting each other back and forth. I was bored and the rain showed no intention to stop. I decided to check out a few famous Okonomiyaki restaurant. First I went to Mitsu (okonomiyaki restaurant from 47 live) but it was closed for mid-afternoon break. So then I made my way to the okonomiyaki street and found Hachimasa (okonomiyaki restaurant feature on Arashi’s TV show) but it was not opening till 5 pm. Out of luck I decided it was time for me to leave Hiroshima and to finally hit Osaka!!

I got to the train station only to find it under a state of pure chaos!!! Turned out all that rain had flooded a city further south and had damaged the shinkansen line. Thousand of people were laying on the floor of the station, waiting for the next available train. Luckily the only track still in function was the one for Shin-Osaka. But what a nightmare… everyone trying to get out of Hiroshima with no where to go… Even the Osaka bound trains were delayed for hours. I jumped in the next departing train (even thought my ticket was for another one) and played the foreigner card!! I had no intention of being stuck one more day in Hiroshima.