Lights in the sky inspire

I really love fireworks, especially when they last for two and a half hours!!! This weekend I took a crazy long train ride to visit my friend Cat at her place in Tsuchiura for this spectacular Hanabi Masturi (fireworks festival). While the train ride was really long, it helped me to finish my book and start on a new one, so that is always nice. I got to Cat's place around 3pm and was so very happy to see a bunch of JETs there for the festivities! For this festival, if you had a ticket ($100!) you could sit in the reserved seating section and hear the music and announcements being made. Frankly since everything was in Japanese, the ticket wasn't worth it and I think we ended up with such a perfect view of all the fireworks. You can see how sweet the view was by watching the video I took with my little camera!

The fireworks began at 6pm and before that the group of us JETs hung out at Cat's ate some, drank some and just had a nice day catching up and getting excited for the evening to come! At about 10 to 6pm we all walked down to the official row where the food stands were set up and the fireworks launch site. It was like walking down the corridor of an old time bazaar. We were surrounded by a giant mass of people and flanked on either side with delicious, handmade food and sweets and all the drinks you can imagine! We walked up and down the entire path to get a good look at what was around, and then the group of us when to find a place to set up a homebase and sit down for the long light show ahead. We ended up finding a nice big place in an empty parking lot right behind a takoyaki (octopus balls) stand! The fireworks were just beautiful and intense. In addition to that video, I put up a bunch of pictures too!

I love things like fireworks because it's dark, and the lights bursting in the sky are so vibrant; I feel like a giddy child. There is something about fireworks that are just so magical and bewildering. I'm no chemist, so the inner workings of fireworks and their beautiful colors are beyond my comprehension. I think it makes them more enjoyable; the mystery helps me to feel awe and inspired by something so grand that I do not understand.