Hamamatsu welcomes summer with big blasts of fireworks. For the past three consecutive Saturdays, Bentenjima hosted more than an hour long of fireworks display. This is part of several Fireworks Festival in Japan. Last Saturday was the last for this year in Bentenjima. I almost missed that but thanks to a friend who invited me to tag along, I was able to witness one of the biggest Firework Festivals in Hamamatsu.
It really is a big festival considering the long snaking lines to trains bound for Bentenjima. In fact, the JR trains scheduled special trips on that day to accommodate the crowd. Traffic was unusually heavy.
(For more of Bentenjima, click here)
My friends and I decided to meet at 530 pm even though the fireworks will start at 730. Based on their experience last year, if we leave past 6 pm, we won't be able to find a space and transportation will be horrible.
True enough, it took us a while to ride a train and more time to find a patch of land spacious enough to sit on.
Families and groups of young people brought mats and had picnics while waiting for the fireworks.
At exactly 730 pm the fireworks display started with a loud bang. A flash of red then yellow lit the skies. The scene was like alien invasions in the movies. From that moment on, we were bombarded with a spectacle of lights for more than an hour.
There were the usual colorful fireworks.
Then there were fireworks of various shapes- hearts, squares and smileys.
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| photo credit: http://vivaciousislove.blogspot.jp/2011/02/fabulous-fireworks.html |
There were also fireworks that made me think of moving atoms. Once they exploded the remaining lights moved in a specific angle before finally dissolving into the air.
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| photo credit: http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/time-travellers-log/entry/the-fireworks-families-of-sivakasi |
My favorite was the fireworks that looked like gold dust falling from the skies.
Because it was more than an hour long, there was a point in the show where we just wanted it to be over.
We wanted to go home but we didn't want to miss the finale.
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| photo credit: http://wakemedvoices.org/2011/07/fireworks-injuries-can-happen-to-you/ |
We're glad we stayed until the final hoorah. For the finale, a continuous explosion of lights lasted for four minutes. It was a mosaic of vivid colors in the sky. The sky was so bright that the street lights turned off.
The downside of staying was the crowd of people waiting for the trains. Even though the station was just across Bentenjima, it took us more than an hour to ride the train because there were just so much people.
Nonetheless, it was quite an experience especially for a first-timer like me.
I think there are Fireworks Festivals in other places.
Click here for the Fireworks Schedule around Hamamatsu
PS: The fireworks pictures are not from the festival but they are similar. I didn't bring a decent camera cause I wasn't really planning to go.
