My tenative additional plan for Saturday was to go see the fireworks in Iwakuni, a 45 minute, 740 yen, train ride down the coast from Hiroshima. Iwakuni is mostly famous for its long, multi-arched red bridge. The fireworks were to take place near the bridge. The show was to start at 8pm and last until 9:30pm. Unfortunately due to the times of the last train from Hiroshima to Mukaihara, I would need to leave about half way through the show to catch a train back to Hiroshima. When I travel alone I usually don’t do too much detail planning, generally I work out the basics like the ones mentioned to make sure it’ll work, but play it by ear from there. Usually works out and amazingly it did this time too.

I left Hiroshima for Iwakuni around 6-6:30 (can’t remember exactly), and managed to get a few glimpses of the famous red tori gate of Miyajima out the train window on the way — that will be another trip for another day (but soon I hope). When I got to Iwakuni, I realized one of the best rules for traveling in Japan. If in doubt, become Japanese and follow the group. Since everyone was bound to be going to see the fireworks, I just followed the crowd to a line for buses going to the bridge. The bus wound through the crowded streets, taking a rather long time to get there. But, not to worry, arrived with probably 10-15 minutes to spare and found an OK spot with a view of the bridge and the fireworks (which would be slightly obscured by a tree). I wanted to remain in sight of the bus stop so I could judge how soon I’d have to leave.

The show itself was quite impressive, I think they were being fired from boats a little downstream. As near as I could tell from the announcements, different volleys of fireworks were done by different groups, part of how they could do a 1.5 hour show. Each volley was about 1-2 minutes long I’d guess, and in the 45 minutes I was there I saw about a dozen. Most of the varieties of shells were ones I’d seen in the US, but usually they were fired closer together for better effect. Also the terrain improved the show, Iwakuni’s river has hills along it adding an echo to the booms and bangs of the fireworks. Another apparent feature of the festivities was probably a commerant fishing demonstration, but I had to leave before they did their thing but I did see they bring the boats to shore and load on the birds. Along the banks it seemed quite the festival was going on. Maybe another time I can spend a bit more time and see a bit more.

Time up, I caught the bus back to the station. As I hoped, it moved along a bit quicker since everyone was back at the show instead of crowding the street. Managed to get on the platform with about 10 minutes to spare and returned to Hiroshima with about 20 minutes layover for the train home. I’d worried a bit about cutting it this close, but generally the times of Japanese trains are so accurate you can set a watch by them. I ran into one of the rare exceptions on the train home when it stopped a couple stations before Mukaihara for about a half hour. Unfortunately I couldn’t make out what the announcements said the cause was or how long it could take (which was a little unnerving). When we got going again, I saw a couple police cars and workers at a crossing along the way, so I can only guess there was an a malfunction or accident that was the cause. I finally got home around 12:30a and more than a bit tired. With the late night and all the activity, I wasn’t sure if I’d make it to the Sundance beach music festival the next day, but I figured I’d try. More about that in the next entry.

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