The weather here has been as hot as ever, and I've been staying indoors as much as possible. However, this is the season for fireworks in Japan. There are literally dozens of major fireworks displays that go on in the area throughout the end of July and August. I've been to three, and have watched several others from a distance. I've got to say the they know how to put on a fireworks show here! The choreography is better than anything I've ever seen, and the fireworks themselves are simply amazing. It's really too bad that I haven't been able to get any decent pictures of them. I would guess that some of these can be seen in the U.S., but I sure haven't seen them before. I'm talking smiley faces, hearts, jellyfish, fireworks within fireworks within fireworks! I don't even know how to begin, except to say that it's amazing on at least two different levels: First, the variety of the fireworks themselves. Some of these things will go through five different color and style changes before they're finished. Second, the sheer quantity of fireworks is simply amazing. A typical large show will have 10,000 fireworks! No numbers games. You know what they shoot off one of every 15 seconds or so in Austin? Here they'll go through 10,000 of them in one hour, only they're much more amazing. Some times when they work into a crescendo, a whole region of the sky fills up with silver or gold trails. You can't even begin to distinguish between the individual fireworks, there are so many of them going off.
The really big shows have over 20,000 fireworks. I think I saw something that listed one as having 100,000. I think those shows tend to last last longer than one hour.
Another really great thing about the fireworks festivals is the clothing. Most of the women and many of the men will wear traditional summer kimono and the wooden sandals (called geta, I think) to the festivals. The summer kimono are made of light cotton and are printed in bright colors and patterns. It really is the right way to see Japan (even if you are sweating your brains out). Oh, heck...now that I think of it, I guess I'll post some of the pictures I took, even if they are very blurry from the low lighting. At least you can get an idea of what I'm talking about.
So much for the fireworks. It's still as hot and humid as ever, so the fireworks festivals are just about all that I've done lately. I'm still waiting for the weather to turn cooler, so I'm going to have to find stuff going on that's indoors.
- Chuck