Nagaoka Hanabi Matsuri

Went to the Nagaoka fireworks festival with some of my second-grade students. The Nagaoka fireworks festival is one of the 3 biggest fireworks festival in Japan. It runs over 3 nights, with about 20,000 fireworks set off every night. The show lasts for 2 hours every night. The fireworks were set off along the Shimano river (longest river in Japan). I had a very good time!

(L-R): Kayano, Mika, Taro, me, Wataru and Ryo.

All the good viewing spots (on the flat part of the riverbanks) were reserved from early morning, so we had to settle for a spot on a steep grassy slope which resulted in us sliding off the mat and having to constantly push ourselves back up. Nevertheless, we had a beautiful and clear view of the fireworks exploding over the river.

Greedy Mika trying to stuff the huge piece of fried chicken into her mouth as Kayano looks on.

Mika (my favouritest student...she's a really sweet and funny girl) brought okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes, sort of), yaki soba (fried noodles), tori karaage (fried chicken) and corn for everyone to eat.

My students were very happy because I treated them to chu-hi (pronounced choo-hai). It's a very mild alcoholic drink - shochu (Japanese liquor made from wheat? or sweet potato) mixed with soda or some fruit juice. I later found out that my students were not supposed to drink cos the legal drinking age in Japan is 20?! Oops...no wonder they were so happy.

The opening act: Niagara falls. It was really pretty. Observation: The Japanese get very excited and vocal when viewing fireworks...you hear a lot of loud gasps, ahhs, "kirei" (beautiful), "kawaii" (cute), "sugoi / suge" (cool), clapping and even screams.

Video of fireworks (Click on triangular play button to play video)

This was part of a 100-fireworks series. Every set of fireworks is sponsored by a company. After an announcement of the sponsor, the announcer started counting off as the fireworks exploded one by one. The crowd actually started shouting the numbers as well. Then more and more of the fireworks started going off at the same time and the crowd went crazy. It's a pity I forgot to turn the mike on before I started to record this. Everyone was just screaming hysterically.

Last part of the grand finale: the Phoenix. You will hear a song accompanying this fireworks display in the background. This set of fireworks was created last year to symbolise the area's recovery from a big earthquake in Oct 2004. The fireworks were fired in a row along the river bank...truly a sight to behold.

Great view of fireworks exploding above the bridge over the river.