花火(hanabi) is the Japanese word for fireworks. Summertime in Japan is all about the festivals and fireworks! This Saturday was the 隅田川花火大会(Sumida River Fireworks Display).
This particular fireworks show is famous for being one of the best, but it also means big crowds, lots of drunk salarymen, and saving seats (by placing a tarp on the ground hours beforehand). A lot of my friends did this, but I was luckily enough to have been invited to view the fireworks from the air-conditioned comfort of Suda Sensei's (my teacher) friend's apartment.
Suda Sensei's friend had an apartment in the 下町downtown area of Tokyo. From the apartment balcony/windows there was a beautiful view of the Tokyo Skytree which is right around the area where the fireworks were going off. My camera died so I wasn't able to take the best pictures of the fireworks but I stole some off the Sumida Fireworks website for your viewing pleasure!
Japanese hanabi are really just amazing! There was even a Pikachu shaped firework! (though it looked more like a cat than anything else)
The skytree was unlit for the fireworks show (started at 7, lasted until 8:30!). Usually the skytree is blue or purple, it alternates days.
Suda Sensei's friend who's house we were at was an old co-worker of hers. This woman was so nice, not your typical Japanese woman though, very outspoken and loud. At the party were also some of her hometown and high school friends. It was a lovely fireworks watching party, we ate sukiyaki which is a kind of Japanese dish where you fry tofu, veggies, meat, basically anything in the same hot pot.
I was the only foreigner so I did feel a little bit like a celebrity (a really awkward celebrity) when it seemed like everyone wanted a picture with me. The man behind me in the white shirt is (or was?) a co-worker of Suda Sensei's, and the man in the black shirt is the husband/host/owner of the apartment.
Another one of Suda Sensei's co-workers
I actually can't remember who this lady is but I took a picture with her!
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