The night ablaze

I think I'm all Hanabied out.

Yesterday I caught a train from my Japanese lesson in Toyohashi all the way across Aichi prefecture to Inuyama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuyama) for the Inuyama fireworks festival. For those who have never been to Inuyama, it's a rather nice, medium-sized town right on the border of Aichi/Gifu. It is home to Inuyama castle, which was built in the early 16th century and is the oldest castle in Japan. The castle itself is perched on a hill overlooking the extremely picturesque Kiso river, and is probably one of my most favourite places outside Kyoto.

After meeting up with some coworkers and friends/students of coworkers, we headed across the river into Gifu to find a good place to watch the fireworks. Some people in our group had camped out early and gotten a spot right on the riverbank, a few hundred metres across the river from the castle. As such, when the fireworks did start going off it was like being on the receiving end of a pretty artillery bombardment



During the course of the evening, I thought I was being bitten by mosquitos. Strangely, they seemed to swarm right after the bigger fireworks detonated. It wasn't until half way through the show that we realised we were exactly downwind of the explosions, and close enough to the fireworks barrage to be pelted by tiny, hot rocket fragments.

I made a good choice when sitting next to Adam, whose larger frame shielded me from the worst of the barrage. I think I owe him a coke or something :p

As I'm now on summer vacation, I have a few more (non-hanabi) events in the works for this week. Please stay tuned!

-Blake