すみだのはなび-Sumida Fireworks show

The slacker blogger is back :-)



Yesterday, In a quest to quench my thirst for exploring Tokyo, I went down to the Sumida River in Asakusa. The Hanabi (fireworks) season usually begins around this time of the year and the Sumida firework show is by far the biggest and oldest.

Legend has it the first firework began as early as 1733! Wow..thats pretty old!
Legend also has it some 20,000 fireworks are blasted. Not sure about this though, the crackers were blasting non stop for over an hour and at the end of the show, i had a bad neck pain :(
The one thing that strikes you almost immediately in Asakusa they were so many people!

About 100,000 easily! And that's a lot of people for a fireworks show. My expectations soared when i saw the crowd but i was slightly let down by the show.Only slightly though. I mean, if the same kind of crackers were burst for over an hour,one tends to get distracted rather easily.
But with a lot of cute Kimono-clad Japanese girls around, there was much to keep me occupied.

Overall i enjoyed the show per se.

Some photos here...

The crowd in the station...Totally Jam packed!



This is what i meant by "cute-Kimono clad-Japanese-girls".




A part of 100,000 strong crowd ! Notice how people are sitting on the road. The trick is finding a a good spot for the view. It was crazy humid and beers were guzzled down as fast as they came.





And finally let the show begin..........!



The colours were vibrant.





So, with my thirst for exploration quenched, we returned back sweating and dripping :)