Since I’ve arrived here in Osaka, I’ve always looked forward to watching the Yodogawa Hanabi* display each year. It takes place on the first or second Saturday of August. I make sure that I don’t miss it because it’s just a few minutes walk from my place. There are lots of fireworks all over Japan during summer but I avoid the hassle of taking overcrowded trains. My experience this year was one of a kind.

We arrived at the river bank at around 6PM (the fireworks usually starts at 7:30PM). At first it appeared to be a fine day…

But the clouds seemed to have come to an agreement to gather in Yodogawa…

At around seven, we had to temporarily vacate our spot for fear of being hit by lightning.
Not long after, big raindrops started to fall so we had to take shelter in the nearby houses. I always bring my umbrella but unfortunately, I left it in my other bag.

We thought that they would hold the fireworks display until the rain stops but we were really surprised when we heard big bangs coming from the river! Yes, they still lighted the fireworks despite the heavy rains. So, we rushed back to our spot, while trying to keep our bags from getting wet. Just imagine running through a crowd of people, with the rain pouring down on your face and eyeglasses!

For the next 40 minutes, Idel and I used our picnic mat to cover just our heads and our bags, while staring at the magnificent display ahead.  As we had predicted, the rain stopped a few minutes before the end of the fireworks display. I’m sorry I still don’t have a digital camera yet so all I got were these lame fireworks display photos using my cellphone:

That small ball of light at the upper left was the moon 花火 -> Hanabi -> fireworks

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 11:12 pm and is filed under Experiences in Japan, Simply Osaka. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.