Day 60- Hanabi-dori

DAY 60!!! 1 month=30 days until I am in the sky off to the chi! Anyways, today was a very special day in Tokyo. It was the Sumidagawa hanabi-dori (Sumida river fireworks). This is the largest fireworks show in Tokyo. Since it is the largest there were tons of people everywhere. I met my boss at noon, since he woke up at 8am to tape off a spot for our group. I though we were intense because we came early to get a good spot. But according to my boss some people come a couple days earlier for the prime locations. The people that guard the spots are typically the underlings of a company. That was me for the day! I was given the honorary task of guarding our spot until the show. It was pretty boring. I sat there and watched as couples started to show up to take their spots. Me=awkwardly sitting on the curb, headphones in, hoping no one bothers me. Which no one did. In the end all faired well.

During all the guarding, I took a break and went to a shrine that was nearby. It was a tourist hotspot. There were so many foreigners. Gates prior to entering the shrine. The lantern in between was HUGE!

Near the shrine there are tons of food stalls and whatnot but there was this one stall that was making candy!

After the old man put the sugar coating on the fruit, he would put it on an ice block to let it cool down. From there you were able to choose which one you wanted.

Then making my way back to my bicycle, I saw this old lady. She was just walking and then all of a sudden she walks right inbetween two buildings! I was like SPIRIT! So, I took a snapshot of her disappearing into the otherside. (If you've ever seen TOKYO!, there's a scene where the two main characters of the first segament are talking about how spirits live inbetween the buildings. In Japan, you can find a lot of the buildings don't touch one another. Usually there is a tiny gap between both. Just wide enough to get a hand in. I think that's where spirits live too...)

I know it's blurry...Anyways, we're all sitting in the middle of the road waiting for the show!
The festival was started by the 8th shogunate to honor the dead and ward of disease and famine. At the time, the local restaurants were given permission to set off the fireworks and its been continued ever since.