Hanabi Taikai

It's been a while since I went to a fire work festival in Japan. Hanabi = fire works. Hanabe Taikai is a fire works festival. This is a big thing in Japan. Hanabi Taikai makes our feeling somehow excited. Everybody talks about it and gets excited as the date is closer.....well, unless you have to work until late night and there is no chance to go one. With work reason, and also I was not in Japan, I have been missing those fire works festivals. I know there is a lot of fire works on July 4th in USA but those in Japan is you will see it so close. Even though it would be crazy crowded, we like to get close and watch the whole show. Girls like to wear yukata, Japanese cotton kimono, for a special date. Isn't it so fun to dress up and go out? : )

The travel date to Sapporo, Hokkaido. I was informed they have a fire festival over Toyohira river where runs right next to the hotel we stay. We were excited and hoping to have a glance of the fire works. As closer we get, we start hear a sound of fireworks from far. I cried out " I heard the sound!" and everyone quickly shut their mouth and tried to hear it. "Oh! Heard it! Cool" we start having fun just to hear the sounds. But still, we were driving in a town surrounding tall buildings. Then another girl said "Ah!! I saw it between the building!!". We started seeing them, just part of it, here and there.

We arrived the hotel, we wanted to go see it but we have to leave in 5 mins. On the floor we stayed, there was a all window end of the hallway and we could see the fire works. "Great! We can see them!!" As soon as I left my suitcase in my room, I went to the window. Other girls were thinking the same thing. We were excited. The fireworks are a little bit far but still gave us the nice summer feeling. I guess that was hotel's kind consideration, there were chairs in front of the window. Still we all stood there and watched them without a word for a few minutes.
The fact we saw just a few minutes of Hanabi Taikai made me so happy. Hanabi is something special and indispensable to Japanese culture in summer.