Summer Festivals
Part I
10.08.2006
36 °C
Summer has hit in full vengence.
The last 2 weeks, the minimum has been at least 27C, the max, 39C. Factor in the humidity and its been a sticky hot summer. Its 3:30pm and 35C, overcast and dry. The mountains which usually hit in a haze on the horizon and now shrouded in low cloud. It suggests rain is coming but the dry air says otherwise.
I'm now 1 week into a 2 week summer vacation. In this heat, I'm a hermit, hiding in my aircon room, venturing out only to restock the milk for coffee.
Tenjin Summer Festival - 24 July
One of the most famous festival in Japan saw me in good company. Akira, the co-manager of my local had offered to take me and a friend out to the festival and the chance to see it through the eyes of a local was enough to entice me outside.
We headed out to Umeda station and met up with some of his friends at his previous bar. With a couple of drinks under our belt, we hiked for 30minutes towards the shrine. The streets, usually filled with suits at this hour, were quickly filled with traditional Kimonos and Yukkatas as we got closer and closer.
Roads we blocked, shopping malls clogged with festival stalls, the smell of cheap beer and fried food filled the air. We wandered into the shrine grounds and payed our respects with a bow. Traditional dancers filled one corner as the crowdeds shuffled slowly around the small gravel square.
We headed down towards the river and grabbed some food. Fried noodles with mixed vegetables, coated in a sause that was more hotplate scrappings then flavour. It went down well. For the next 3 hours we wandered past stall after stall, stopping only to regroup for a beer before continuing.
At one point we stopped at a bridge which over looked the river. Night had settled across the sky. A boat covered in torches meandered up and down the river, the flickering flames illuminating the 8 drummers singing out the heatbeat of the night.
I stared at the black sky searching for stars but its curtain was drawn.
"It that rain I feel?" asked our female companion .
"No," we said, "its someone peeing off the bridge." We sniggered at the thought. Perhaps it was rain, the humidity surly cant keep up without breaking. One of our party stepped out from under the bridge to look at the imaginary peeing.
"No seriously, it is someone peeing," he squealled with a cheesy grin. I stepped back to catch a mysterious man take a final shake before popping his member back in his pants and staggering off into the black. He wasnt joking.
"Well," she said with a sigh, " was he good looking?"
PL Fireworks
At 120,000 fireworks in a little over an hour, PL Fireworks is the biggest display in the world. We headed down to Tondabayashi-city on the south side of Osaka. We caught the Nankai-Koya line from Namaba and I watched as the cityscape quickly metamorphed in country. Large grey buildings gave way to rice fields and tree covered hills.
I watch the scenery past by, lost in memory. This was my old neighborhood. Sakai-higashi and Mozu past by and I remembered my old days as a Nova teacher.
At our final station, the train emptied and we were herded into a marching snake of people and wandered through the streets. Food stall chefs called to the crowd enticing their wares - Okinominyaki, Takoyaki, fried chicken, ice cones, grilled corn.
As we marched up the hill, people were camped across the road and empty carparks. We found a spot, merely meters from where I had witnessed the sight over nine years ago.
We waited on the hot bitchimin for almost 30 minutes before we were treated to the show. The sky was bombarded with colour for 80 minutes. Green, red, orange and blinding white. Even with closed eyes, the colours burnt through my eyelids. Couples around us clapped and cheered, gasping in awe as wave after wave exploded above us. Each outbreak echoed across the sky and reverbrated in our chests. As the helicopers circled over head, the climax saw over 7000 red fireworks released in rapid succession. The crowds stood us as the black gave way, and the lanscaped was bathed in a brilliant red glow.
