flower fire

Fireworks at a world heritiage in Japan,
originally uploaded by fun and cool.

That's how fireworks translates in Japanese, hanabi. What better place to see fireworks than at 1 of Japan's 3 famous views (the Itsukushima shrine on Miyajima island). Dozens of my students warned me: the crowd gathering is huge. I wasn't about to let that stop me though. After all, it was my day off work. Check out a few photos I took on the night.

On the day, Wes and I met up after I bought a sun hat. For some stupid reason we both drank half-a-litre of orange juice on the train to the port. This made the ferry ride feel more choppy than usual.

Sitting in the shade, we knocked back a couple of Kirin beers which helped prepare Wes to face the girls. After finding them down on the beach we joined their little picnic with my new straw mat, adding yet another mat to the horizon.

Yukata clad girls and boys dotted the building crowd throughout the afternoon. Just over an hour before kick-off time, I received a call from Yuko and convinced her to come to the show. Swimming against the tidal onslaught of arrivals to the Miyajima ferry port, I began to realise how popular this event really is.

Using back streets and in dim light, a stop at a street vendor on the way to buy more beer, and we found our camp just in time for the start. Sorry folks but words and photos simply cannot describe the awesome feeling of the fireworks sound wave pounding you while in great company at the shore of a truly fantastic island. Yuko introduced me to a momijimanju, a maple leaf shaped little cake treat, "Yum", before we joined the massive throng of people waiting for return ferries.