This festival is a quick one where
people show up about an hour before the fireworks begin to stake
their spot. We sat on a side road about 100 meters or 328 feet from
the staging area where the fireworks were launched from. We have
never been this close to fireworks before and did not have a clue
what we were about to experience.
We took this from our spot. The white boxes are the launching areas.
Every festival has food booths so we
wandered to find some dinner. Fried chicken, fish shaped deserts
filled with chocolate, red bean paste, vanilla cream and plain with
salt and they were very delicious.
The weather cooperated nicely with a slight breeze to blow away the smoke so Vince had a clear sky to take his first ever fireworks shots and they turned out GREAT!
As darkness fell more and more people
showed up and the air was alive with excitement. All of a sudden
Steven said, “Ok, get ready!” I was not prepared for the loud
explosion and shrieked aloud after which I was alternately Oooooing
and giggling at the most spectacular light show just above my head.
Just as I would catch my breath another
round of explosions and lights filled the sky with indescribable
beauty. Keep in mind this was a show put on by a small area just
outside of Uchiko. Ikazaki and Oda are part of Uchiko and the total
population for all three is approximately 17,000.
The video that Lin made of the show is condensed into about 6 1/2 minutes of footage. The show lasted for over 1/2 hour.
Fireworks are so much fun. I have too many fond memories to list here. But the last great show I saw as actually in CM! It was at the 700 year stadium. Different countries from around the world competed - complete with their own soundtrack. The US, of course, played very Americana music and did a lot of red/white and blues :)
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