Saturday 25/7:
It was summer in Japan, and hanabi season, so this weekend it was time for yet another firework festival. This time together with YSEP friends, Yuka and friends of hers that lived in Asakusa.
Asakusa hanabi are on of the biggest firework festivals in Japan, and I read in the paper the day after that about 1 million people showed up! That’s a bit more than 1/5 of the whole population of my home country Norway, only that this million was all crammed into a small city part of Tokyo 0_0
Spite the impressive numbers this ended up being one of my least crowded hanabi experiences in Japan, thanks to Yuka and her friends in Asakusa. We went there early, something which is smart for avoiding the crowd, but not so smart if you are wearing a warm yukata. Kojiro’s mom had again helped me dress, and this time we had used the other side of the obi so that I had a light blue bow on my back instead of last weekends pink. I brought my fan this time luckily, and learned some fancy fan handling from Kojiro to fend of the heat.
At our destination, which turned out be a workshop, we where introduced to a bunch of cool Japanese people. There was beer and snacks for everyone, and the atmosphere rose fast.
After a while they closed the street outside for cars, and everyone rolled out their “sitting on the ground blue plastic mats” that you see everywhere here. The work shop had a huge one rolled out in the blink of an eye, and we had soon set up a group of tables that just as fast began to fill with delicious food.
We ate until we couldn’t eat more, and then we ate some more, and even then the tables didn’t stop filling up with new yummy dishes. I got to try huge Japanese crab claws, and a bunch of other things.
Then finally after sunset, the fireworks started, and we found that we had perfect view of it all despite the location being in the middle of town and not by a river like last hanabi. It was beautiful with tons of colors and lasted and hour strait I think it was, incredible beautiful ^^
