Summer Memories 2 :ターマヤ～！隅田川花火大会

Sumidagawa Fireworks Display July 26th 2008

As I mentioned before, summer is the festivals season in Japan.
After the last Japanese language course lecture, we(class 3) decided to go to the fireworks display of Sumida River; which is considered one of the biggest and the most amazing firework displays in Japan.
花火（はなび= HANABI） means fireworks in Japanese.
The literal translation means "fire flowers".

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Usually people go to such fireworks displays in traditional Japanese Yukata and Jinbei . But you can also find a lot of people going in casual clothes.
In this festival, Firework manufacturers compete to display it's best products.
You can see fireworks shaped as Smiley, Micky mouse, Heart, Cat, Planet..etc. It was really a nice display.

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Someone we all know is being very noisy behind the camera =p

And it was a good opportunity for us as foreign students to have an all-class-go-out in traditional clothes!

Proudly introducing Class 3 members in Yukata and Jinbei.
This picture doesn't show everyone, since 2 members couldn't come that day.
And I know we do look like a group of Japanese but no one is! ^^;

Sumida River in the background

It was very very hard to find a place to sit! We arrived at 3:00 pm thinking that we were "smart" coming this early but we found out -late- that normally people come to the place very early in the morning of that day, reserve their space by marking it's boarders and writing their names by sticking tape on the ground and come back later at the display time to find their space waiting for them as they left it.

Also the stations close to the display place were very very crowded before the show. Streets near the river are closed and no cars are allowed in.
This is to accommodate the large number of people attending. You would really feel that some 2 or 3 million people were gathering in the area around the river. (2 or 3 million are nothing compared to the population of 12 million in Tokyo city alone)

I was wondering why were all these people sitting under the bridge where they can barely see anything...But when the street was closed..I understood.
I saw people holding their picnic mats and waiting VERY carefully for the policemen to give them the OK sign to advance to the street..then when the policemen gave the OK, you suddenly see them run all at once to reserve a sitting place on the street...
I was really amazed. It was truely like a scene of AL-HOSON (Takeshi's castle) Japanese game show!!（^▽^）
I wish I could have taken it on video!! But it just happened in the blink of an eye.

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It was also my first time to see "PORTABLE TOILET ROOMs" （＾▽＾） Alot of them are placed in the display area for the convenience of people.

When it was time to go back, we were stuck in the station for some time before we could finally arrive to the platform and ride the train.
And I arrived home dead tired but happy for enjoying a nice Japanese summer experience~

Pictures with ＊＊　are provided by V!W! チュウさん.

See you next post~!