It might be a bit of a hassle having to extract your luggage and wheel it around through the crowds (you do have rolling luggage, right?), but the benefits of being able to spend a night on the island soaking in the more tranquil, crowd-free atmosphere is absolutely worth it, in my opinion.

My Japanese is so-so. I took classes 3 years ago, but I forgot a lot of it.

We found out there’s a cheap ryokan on the island with rooms on the 13th. We thought about staying the night before, cramming our stuff in coin lockers in the early morning, exploring, seeing the fireworks, and then heading to Hiroshima after it ends. Do you think it’s a bad idea to try to get luggage on such a crowded ferry? I’m wondering if we should just do two nights in Hiroshima instead. What do you think?

We went to Gion matsuri in 2007 and when we tried to walk in the streets, people were crammed up against us. It was really bad until they finally closed streets off to traffic later on. I’m wondering if Miyajima will be like that.

We’ve been to Miyajima once before, but we hardly saw anything, since it was raining a lot. We stayed overnight and saw the torii in the morning, that was about it. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the island! In a way I wish we could see it with less people like last time, but the fireworks look too amazing to pass up!

People start staking out their spots along the beach as early as 8am in morning (those crazy Japanese festival goers!), so if you really have your heart set on a specific location, better grab it fast! That said, I didn’t head down until almost 4pm, but I was only interested in the front row standing room in the wall of other photographers. No one could really take those spots early because the tide was still going out.

If you really have your heart set on good front row seating, I’d stake out your spot in the early afternoon. If your Japanese is any good, you can probably find a friendly nearby group that doesn’t mind hanging out with some weird gaijin and pass the time that way as well.

As for the ferry…well, the entire island turns into a huge cattle rush for the boats as soon as the fireworks are over, so there’s not really any way to avoid the crush if you want to see the show. No need to worry, though. The trains will keep running late on the evening of the festival…after all, all those Japanese folks have to make it back home too! It ended up taking me nearly 2 hours to get off the island and catch a train back to my hotel in Hiroshima, but the fireworks end early enough that it isn’t a problem.

Good luck and don’t forget to have fun while you’re at Miyajima as well! It’s an awesome place for a day trip or five.

Also, how soon did you need to get to the ferry? We will be staying in Hiroshima the night of the 14th (everything on the island is already booked), and we want to make sure we don’t miss the last train!

Yeah, in some places the festival booths are run by the yakuza, but I think in most places it’s more just what they call “tekiya”, not real yakuza groups.

But yeah, the fireworks festival at Miyajima is by far the best fireworks show I have ever seen! Glad you enjoyed it.

anyways, thanks for the memories.

And the grilled squid looks awesome.

Besides, I needed to keep up with the ‘cool’ people.