It’s hanabi season in Tokyo
A lot of woooe and waaaaah to come

In Tokyo, the summer brings many good things. Hot and humid weather (good thing huh?), some well deserved vacation (the so called obon festival which, for many of us, in Japan is a week of mid August) and the hanabi..

Taikai Hanabi
Hanabi means flowers of fire and Taikai, big meeting. You guessed it well. I am talking about fireworks. Summer is the time to find fireworks around Tokyo (I don’t know about the rest of Japan). Today we went to the one near our house, a huge one with more than 20000 fireworks being used. Pretty impressive. When I mentioned my intention to go there, all my Japanese friends told me that it would be very crowded and difficult to enjoy. I even did research on the internet that also tried to discourage us (comparing the crowd to what we experience on a rush hour train)…..in one word, bad.

Other ways
Since we are living maybe 10 blocks away from the Sumida river above which the fireworks were launched, we could have stood on our balcony and enjoyed it from the 7th floor. Also this morning when we left the house, we noticed a sign on the bulletin board downstairs where our landlord was kindly inviting people to join him on the roof (10th floor) and enjoy the hanabi together (nice…).
But hey! We wanted to see this and see it in the crowds to get the real stuff. So we did.

Follow the fashion
Now, getting ready for the event is not easy. Girls and boys wear yukatas, this is what the tradition calls for. Unfortunately we don’t yet have the festival outfit. We should work on that (now that I come to think about it, I am gonna start a birthday present idea list).
But one thing we managed to get was the little Japanese fan. That was easy, it was given away off the street…we both got a lovely one!

Find your viewing spot
That’s the tricky part, finding a good place to watch the fireworks. The banks of the river were closed by the police so the only ways to watch the fireworks is to know someone with a house by the river, nope!, to rent a hotel room by the river, nope!, to go on a boat on the river, nope!, to rent a helicopter, nope!, to sit on the street, yep! Gosh, not easy!
So after walking around, we found a street packed with people. We soon realized that people were sitting in places where the view was not too blocked by buildings (and trust me this is not easy to find in Tokyo). So we kind of followed along and sat on the sidewalk. Most of the other people were way more organized than us, having brought and installed hours in advance some little plastic carpets on the street floor. But we did good and actually got a great spot!

Enjoy
Then the fireworks started, around 7:15pm and lasted until 8:30pm. Fireworks are hard to describe in words but we were very impressed by the intensity of the show. A lot of fireworks, many different kinds, and people around us clapping, wooing and waaaing! That was cool and the final was fantastic. Well done!

- Nico