Yukatas & Fireworks

Last weekend Ikebukuro HC had a picnic outing at a lake in the Kawagoe district to catch the fireworks display. Major towns would have their own fireworks celebration to mark the summer season. We were by the lake as early as 4 pm. to reserve a vantage point from which to catch the fireworks scheduled for 7.30 pm. However, by the time we got there, the Kawagoean locals were already there in full force. Thankfully, a group of Japanese senior citizens kindly allowed us to squeeze in alongside them.

This was the first time Joy got to wear a Yukata (Japanese summer dress). Karen Yee (in picture), a fellow Singaporean and one of the HC leaders, has an extra set of Yukata and loaned Joy one to wear for the occasion. Although not as elaborate as the formal Kimono, the casual light cotton Yutaka takes almost an hour to put on.

Yukata literally means 'bathing clothes' in Japanese, but most people wear it out to traditional Japanese festivals because of its relative ease of use. You would almost always see it being worn at summer events like fireworks displays. The Yukatas fit nicely on Joy & Karen, and they blended in with the rest of the Japanese.

The whole fireworks show took an hour and a half, and it looked magnificent in its varying shapes and colors. Daniel was happily snapping way on his Nikon D40x, although he wished he had his tripod from Singapore with him. The photographs turned out fairly ok, albeit a bit of camera shake.

There were probably a few thousand people congregated by the lake that night. After the show, the queue for the bus back to Kawagoe station was so incredibly long that the HC decided to stay on and bought snacks from the many roadside festival stalls. We had yakisoba, takoyaki & yakitori (you'd notice the word 'yaki' repeatedly because it means 'fried' in Japanese). Seeing the fireworks, eating & talking among ourselves was a nice memorable time for the Ikebukuro HC.