Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Gifu City is famous for its cormorant fishing. Hence the cormorant-themed manhole covers.
Cool, right?

After a two-week hiatus, I have finally caved to the overwhelming cries of "update shiyou" and am back with last week's Tejikara Fire Festival from Gifu.

Aya-sensei finally got me to go to Gifu with her and meet her family - who apparently have been waiting for me to come since sometime last summer. Kawaii! Her mom greeted me at the door with a hug (if you know anything about Japanese people, that's something out of the ordinary, to put it lightly) and told me I should think of her as my Japanese mother. So cute!

Anyway, the purpose of the visit was not just to see Aya's parents, but also to attend a Fire Festival relatively near her house. So go we did. (Try that out, teachers of English!)

Below you will find the abridged version of My Trip to the Fire Festival. Enjoy!

PS, there is a hidden reference to YGII in this posting. I challenge you to find it! Go Billy! (That's not it.)

Me at the "entrance" to the shrine where the festival was to be held.
Note that the actual shrine is really several hundred feet from the "entrance."

Anticipation.
The lanterns waiting to be lit. You can see the firecrackers dangling from the bottoms.

The first lantern, hidden behind a tree.
They gave off a surprising amount of light.

A shower of sparks from the bottom of one of the lanterns.

The firecrackers light up the scene.

An enrapt crowd is awed by the spectacle, while the cameraman hurries to cover his equipment.

A rain of sparks.
Aya and I got a really good spot - the wind carried most of the sparks away from us. We got hit by enough to make it exciting, but not enough to make it worrisome.

Can you guess (as I did) what is about to happen?

An unfortunate, but predictable (by me) "happening."

No worries, mates. A fireman puts out the blaze.
The best part was when they couldn't put out the fire with extinguishers they had to get out the hose. The wind promptly blew the water right back over the crowd. Not on us, though.
That was funny.


A shower of sparks falls to the "dancing" mikoshi below.

Dancing the bell.

Me and a Japanese Fire Truck
Thanks for saving the tree, boys!

Making.... I can't remember what these are called... Like little muffin-y things.
We bought some for Aya's family.

(Did you find the YGII reference? Hint: you need to click on the pictures to see their titles.)