Okazaki's Hanabi Party- Fireworks

It is said to be one of the biggest in Japan... or well at least Aichi Ken. So of course as foreigners who might only have just one chance in our lifetime to attend the party, it got us really excited. The party was held at the big grasspatch by the river near Okazaki castle. So while the girls went on shopping trips for hair accessories together, the guys went to make reservations for seats 2 weeks beforehand. And that was considered late still!! Japanese are really even more "kiasu" ( afraid to lose) than "those we know". (ahem.. fellow singaporeans..) Anyway, that we have to thank our classmate Federik and Robert (a guy from the other class) who went there on the acutal day at 7.30am to make sure our space were not taken away.. and poor him, got sunburnt.

Anyway... the girls, we got dressed together in one of our classmates' room. And she's so amazing with her hands cus she tied everyone's hair.


After that, we went to a kimono shop where I know the owners pretty well. She helped us to adjust our yukatas and her husband was so nice! We had wanted to take a Taxi to the venue but somehow he offered drive us there. It was really nice gesture and very welcomed because it was jammed in the city and really to take a Taxi there will cost a bomb.

It was a amazingly big party. Said to have more than 50 thousand people. Wow and Okazaki's population is only 300 thousand? But anyway we had a good time with the fireworks, eating and of course taking photos...

One interesting thing. Japanese tend to drink a lot of beer during these festivals. In fact they drink anytime anywhere... and well the result it they get drank and do silly things. There was one young punk who got drank, got stripped (willingly or by his friends not too sure). But he started running around naked. Well at least at the river side, the lighting was not too good so we couldn't see anything too clearly either. But he actually ran up to the main street. Don't know what happened later. Only saw his friends taking photos of him.. sigh...

That's the back view of my hair.. can't see too clearly though...

The beautiful fireworks!

The very crowded area