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| my lovely ladies <3 |
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| the whole group |
All the way to Asakusa (where hte festival is held) we were packed in to overly crowded trains and were surrounded by body heat and sweating bodies (it was 35 degrees Celsius that day, so it was understandable). It was so hot, that even though our train had the A/C on full blast, it was still humid inside the train.
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| ignore my sweaty face but for those of you guys who wanted to know where this is ... SUMIDAGAWA! |
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| look at how many people when we got out of the station TT^TT |
After you get off the train, you are not released from this prison of heat. We flooded out of the train just to land in a sea of people who had already gone through the same exact thing we did. Moving at snail pace, we made our way out of the train station and into the streets, where we were ushered into a giant mob of people. Get ready to be friends with the people next to you, because we were in that mob for a good hour or so before finally getting to the bridge.
(NOTE: we actually did talk to an old Japanese woman next to us who was the sweeteset thing EVER. If you DO come to this matsuri, don't be afraid to try talking to the people next to you if you know Japanese, or to the tourists next to you if you don't. Everybody will be just as hot, sweaty, and bored as you, so I'm sure they would be open to talking to new people, plus it's a good way to pass the time)
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| right before we got to the bridge *if you look closely you can see the policemen sectioning people off* |
Once you get closer to the bridge, they start sectioning off groups of about 75-100 people at a time to walk on the bridge and watch the fireworks for about 10 minutes or so, then you are told to move on, as they need to bring the next group in.
Despite the super quick viewing we got, the fireworks were still AMAZING. I don't know if I would suffer through the humidity and impatient crowds again through haha.
Across the bridge is a wonderful selection of different food stands selling limited edition foods or not as commonly seen foods such as different flavored shave ice (peach, mango, etc. they usually serve blue hawaii, strawberry, melon, and one other flavor), unique kinds of yakitori, smoothies, and takoyaki, among other things. DESPITE this amazing selection, I personally would wait until you are further away from the festival to buy from a street vendor or go to a restaurant to get more bang for your buck. There are many amazing stands further away from the festival, they just didn't get there in time to set up near the front (for example, we saw one place selling shave ice for 400 yen and you only get a small cup and the shave ice was kind of crunchy, and a few blocks down we found another one for 350 yen which was a large cup and super soft shave ice with more choices of flavors).
Once you're done looking around the festivities (or once they push you out of the festivity area), if you're willing to bear with the crowd, you can still go visit Tokyo Sky Tree which is only a short walk away, and it's also close to a train station that will be less crowded than the ones closer to the festival! (That being said, it will still be majorly crowded)
The Tokyo Skytree Town, which is a small shopping area with a few restaurants, will still be open, so you can shop around while you wait for the crowds to die down (although the lines may be a bit longer due to the celebrations) or you can just go straight to the station.
Basically in my opinion:
Ups: unique experience, easy way to make new friends, fun to dress up, very organized
Downs: crowded, humid, only get to see fireworks for about 10 minutes, everything very rushed and hurried
If you guys DO come to Japan for a visit during summer, I would NOT recommend Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival or any of the more famous festivals as the one festival you experience. Try to find a slightly smaller fesitval near you that still has fireworks or anything of the like to get a more comfortable cultural experience!
I also apologize for being so emotional at the end of the video, I had just said bye to my friends from this semester for the last time, so the emotions still lingered. I figured it would be kind of a nice tribute to them to leave it at the end of the video.
XOXO,
Meowko
