隅田川 花火ーSumida River Hanabi

Hanabi are festivals centered around an elaborate fireworks display held throughout the summer months in Japan. Japan jhas some really famous shows all over the place, Miyajima I think holds one of the most famous.

I really wanted to go to Yokohama's fireworks festival a couple weekends ago but it got rained out by the typhoon. I think they're having another one tonight but I wont be making it. I did, however, go to one of Tokyo's biggest shows at Sumida River (near asakusa jinja!).

Andrew and I got there really early so we could get a good spot. We found a ton of people sitting near the shrine so we thought that must be a good place and grabbed an okay spot. It was close to all the food vendors too so I got to try out lots of different festival foods-for example, I think inJapan they don't eat baked potatoes much because there was a stand with them and it was really popular. In japan they seriously put like a fistful of butter on top and then a ton of salt. It tastes super good but is probably the worst thing for your body Ever!

A lot of people go to Hanabi in yukata and I had planned to but the cheap 300 yen yukata I got in Himeji was too short. No big deal, I think I would have been a little hot anyway. Still, it was neat to see so many people-mostly teenagers and college kids-dressed up in yukata.

So we waited in our spot for hours and finally the fireworks got started. Leave it up to Japanese people to wait in a spot that you can't see the firworks from! I was bummed since we'd been there for hours and we couldnt see a thing! Still, Andrew and I got up and followed the crowd making our way, slowly, to a really good spot in the street where we could see. The fireworks were excellent, soooo cool! and the crowd was really good at oooing and aaaaing. It was neat.

Now, Andrew and I did not stay for the whole thing. This is because, as I hve probably not made clear, despite being i the rather large area of asakuse we were packed into tons of people. Apparently there are supposed to be something like 10000 people at this festival. So, imagine 10000 people trying to get home once it is over all at the same time at the ONE station in that area.
Yeah.

Manami said once when she went she had to wait two hours from the front of the station to get onto a train.

So, andrew and I skipped about half of the fireworks in an effort to beat a bit of the rush. We did okay but it was still super crowded and really unpleasant.

This is what I have to say about Sumida river's fireworks festival:
As cool as it is, and Im really glad I went, I would rather climb Mt, Fuji twice in a row (in the off season) than ever do Sumida river twice in a row.

I'll put pictures up later but Andrew has them right now!
Love you!